Genesis 43:6-7
Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?”
Israel (formerly known as Jacob) was now the patriarch and had a chance to teach his boys the great things of the faith. Yet, after all these years, he had still not grasped the sovereign rule of God and God's faithfulness to His promises. God had promised to love Jacob and bless him. Yet, Jacob saw the "bad" things that had happened in his life as unprofitable and outside of God's love. All this time Joseph had been in Egypt and God was preparing a place for Israel and a refuge for the entire family. Yet, Israel could not see God's hand in all this. Even now, when the boys had already returned from Egypt once and were informed that they needed to bring Benjamin back with them, Israel could not see the hand of God. His old age had not expanded his faith in this area. He was still living in fear. Fear is a lack of faith in what God can and has promised to do. Fear, in a lack of faith, will always lead to poor logical discussions. This is what is happening in the above passage. Neither father or son are in a place of recognizing what God was doing, or could do. There was no fasting and prayer for answers from God. There was only fear. If we want to deal with our fear and replace the fear with faith, we have to grasp the love that God has for us. Note the following from John's epistle:
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We fear the events of live because we don't fully believe, in faith, that God loves us. If we truly believed that God loves us and would only allow things to happen to us that He wants for us and thinks is best for us and His plan, we would not fear, but rejoice in faith. Perfect love (knowing God perfectly loves us and loves us perfectly) will cast out fear and replace it with faith. The truth is, we fear because we don't believe. When we put our faith in God there is nothing to fear because we know that He has perfect love for us.
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