10 And they said to him, “No, my lord, but your servants have come to buy food. 11 We are all one man’s sons; we are honest men; your servants are not spies.”
12 But he said to them, “No, but you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”
13 And they said, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and in fact, the youngest is with our father today, and one iis no more.”
14 But Joseph said to them, “It is as I spoke to you, saying, ‘You are spies!’ 15 In this manner you shall be tested: jBy the life of Pharaoh, you shall not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. 16 Send one of you, and let him bring your brother; and you shall be 3kept in prison, that your words may be tested to see whether there is any truth in you; or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies!” 17 So he 4put them all together in prison kthree days.
18 Then Joseph said to them the third day, “Do this and live, lfor I fear God: 19 If you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined to your prison house; but you, go and carry grain for the famine of your houses. 20 And mbring your youngest brother to me; so your words will be verified, and you shall not die.”
And they did so. 21 Then they said to one another, n“We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; otherefore this distress has come upon us.”
22 And Reuben answered them, saying, p“Did I not speak to you, saying, ‘Do not sin against the boy’; and you would not listen? Therefore behold, his blood is now qrequired of us.” 23 But they did not know that Joseph understood them, for he spoke to them through an interpreter. 24 And he turned himself away from them and rwept. Then he returned to them again, and talked with them. And he took sSimeon from them and bound him before their eyes.
I find this to be interesting because we know that Joseph has already forgiven his brothers, he isn’t living in the past. So why all the games, why throw them prison? I first believe that he’s making sure that they are his brothers, two he knows that they are not the most honest people out there. He wants to make sure they return, and do what he tells them to do.
Joseph is no longer living in the past, he is living in the now. Let us not get confused about what remembering the past and living in the past is. When I graduated college I left campus and took some great memories with me, the next year when School started up I maybe stepped foot on campus four or five times and that was to see friends who were still in school. And the years to follow it got fewer and fewer, but one guy I went to school with couldn’t stop living in the past. He went almost every day to campus to see people and hang, three years after we graduated he was still going to campus two to three times a week, he couldn’t let go of the past, he wanted to stay there.
While the rest of us moved forward he stayed there. We all have pasts that may haunt us that we have been wronged by people. Some of us maybe put our hope and trust in a spouse and they betrayed that trust, maybe it was a parent or a close friend, maybe you were made fun of by others. These are things that can if we allow them to control our lives, we can sit and ponder on them for hours, and instead of moving forward we are suddenly stuck in the past, we find ourselves going back and thinking if only I had done this or that. I would be a different person if it wasn’t for so and so.
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