Genesis ends on a relatively high note.
Jacob’s family is safe in Egypt. They have land to settle in and room to grow. Because of Joseph’s influence, they are in good standing with Pharaoh.
As Joseph is about to die, he speaks these words:
“God will surely lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he vowed to give to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Genesis 50:24)
Settle here for a while. Be free. Be safe. Multiply.
But remember that this is not ultimately your home. Remember God’s promise to our father, our grandfather, and our great-grandfather.
I imagine everyone’s heads nodding. Yes. Amen. God’s will be done.
Others may have been anxious to get out of Egypt as soon as possible and settle in their own land, where they would not be subject to a foreign ruler. Let’s take what is ours now! Freedom!
And then others responding: Chill, man. This is good. We are free here. There’s no rush.
Turn the page, and 400 years go by.
One page.
Maybe your Bible’s format did not even require a page turn. You just needed to move to the next paragraph or the next column.
A few verses in, we read that over time, new leadership had come. The stories about Joseph and the Pharaoh he had been close with had dwindled and become far-gone memories.
The new ruler did not know much about it. He just saw a problem: a large and prosperous group of people living on the outskirts who could become potential enemies.
So they were put to hard labour and made slaves. We are told that the Egyptian people began to despise them.
A couple of things
First, 400 years! Why so long? God, what is up?
Second, how did we go from that to this?
The Israelites were good at passing stories on from generation to generation. There is no doubt that, even 400 years later, the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were known.
They knew the story of how Joseph had become the second most powerful ruler in Egypt, how they had come to settle and prosper, and how one day God would bring them back to their own promised land.
As the years went by, I am sure the stories kept being told. But I can imagine that, from one generation to the next, those telling the stories were perhaps becoming a little more skeptical.
But at least they were settled and doing well in Egypt.
So, no worries.
But now the narrative had fully shifted.
Now, as the stories were told, they would be received with a question:
Where is God now?
There are times in our journey when we stop to assess where we are and have to ask ourselves:
How in the world did I get here? What happened?
God, where have you been?
As the psalmist says in Psalm 13:
“How long, O Lord?”
How long must I wait?
You thought that by now you would be in a very different place. Things ended up quite differently.
Maybe you are still doing well but are aware that you had envisioned things differently.
Maybe things went south, and you do not understand why God did not intervene or why he seems to remain silent.
Maybe you know it was your own sequence of bad decisions that brought you here.
Four hundred years.
Now what? Where do we go from here?