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
 
Twenty years have passed since the conflict with Joseph’s brothers landed him in slavery. In the intervening years, we hear little about the goings on with Joseph’s family back in Canaan. Yet all of the sudden they come rushing back onto the scene. The famine that smacked Egypt is crippling them too.
 
Joseph and his family are on a collision course and neither party seems to realize it. But we can see it coming.
 
Jacob, the paterfamilias, gives his sons who are with him a nudge into the action. And perhaps God is there nudging behind the scenes as well. How pregnant was this moment!
 
Have you ever had a moment like this? It can only be seen in the rear view mirror. Tremendous pressures pile up to move the wheels of the world and of our lives. And yet nothing has happened yet. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the stillness breaks. The wheels start turning. Momentum builds. And life is never the same again.
 
Look back over your life. Can you spot a time or two when God was at work building healthy tension to help you get moving? What was that experience like for you? What does that experience tell you about God and his character?