Treasure In The Sack

“Your God has given you treasure in your sacks.”  Genesis 43:23

 

Joseph knew them the moment he saw them, but the ten tired and hungry shepherds never guessed they were bowing to their baby brother.  They had come to Egypt to buy grain because of the famine, and the need for food knocked them to their knees before the only one who could help them--or hurt them.

They were at Joseph’s mercy, and he could finally make them pay.  Revenge could be so sweet.  Did they remember his anguished cries from the deep, dry well?  They could now.  Had they tasted the humiliation of being sold as property and treated as less?  They could now.  He could make them feel the pain of injustice, the sting of betrayal, the desperate days, the aching heart, and the broken life.   Payback wouldn’t be pretty, and the score was his to settle.

But he didn’t.  Instead Joseph, still unknown to them, sent them home, keeping Simeon in Egypt until they returned with his younger brother.  He filled their sacks with grain and topped of their supplies with the silver they had given as payment.  

His kindness caught them off guard and made them afraid.  On their next trip down to buy more grain, they found Joseph’s steward and said, “‘Please, sir, we came down here the first time to buy food.  But at the place we stopped for the night we opened our sacks and each of us found his silver.  We don’t know who put our silver in our sacks.’  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.  Your God has given you treasure in your sacks’”(Gen. 43:20-23).

“Treasure in your sacks.”  They asked for grain, but what they needed more was grace, and as Joseph’s brothers pulled the silver from their sacks, they were holding the treasure of forgiveness.  Unexpected, undeserved, unforgettable forgiveness.

Don’t pay back others for what they have done.

Pay forward what God has done.

“Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”