When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, "Why do you just keep looking at each other?" – Genesis 42:1

Today's Scripture Reading (September 9, 2021): Genesis 42

Mark Twain commented that "I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!" I agree with the humorist more often than I would want to admit. Sometimes it takes me too long to make up my mind. But it is not because of "a prodigious amount of mind." The problem is that, when it comes to decision-making, we never have all the facts or even enough facts. Even when we think that we have the answers, the reality is that we are seeing only part of the situation or are prioritizing different aspects of what we know. And it is often what we think we know about something that causes the disagreements that rage among us. We know differently or see and prioritize different parts of the whole, so we believe different things.

Jacob had come to learn that there was food in Egypt. It was likely the first year of the famine, and yet things were already getting desperate. But there was food in Egypt, and Jacob's comments would lead us to believe that knowledge of this food had already spread widely in the area. This wasn't information that Jacob possessed that his sons lacked. They all knew where the food was. What mystified Joseph was that his adult sons hadn't moved on that knowledge; they hadn't explored what it would take to get the food that they needed from their Egyptian neighbors.

Jacob didn't understand. "Why do you just stand there and look at each other? Aren't you smart enough to realize that we have a problem and that the solution to that problem lies in Egypt? Staring at each other is not going to get us the food that we need!" What Jacob didn't know was that there was another problem. The brothers likely suspected that Joseph was also in Egypt. Oh, it was unlikely that they would meet him, he may not even be alive, but something inside of them was warning them that in Egypt lies the possibility of trouble. In Egypt, their past guilt might become a current problem. Actually, it already had. The brothers could barely look at each other without a wave of guilt threatening to overwhelm them.

"Why do you just stand there and look at each other?" The only honest response the brothers could have would have been "because the ghosts of the past stand between us and the future." Sometimes it takes us time to make up our minds because we just don't have enough information or too much information. But sometimes, we are simply so incapacitated by the ghosts that we can no longer see the road leading to the future.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Genesis 43