If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried. —Genesis 47:29 & 30, NIV (emphasis mine)
The man who have fought for so many things, who tricked but was also tricked, began to feel the waste in his bones. One day he was playing with his sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren. The other day he went about his business in a chair. Still the other day he was laying in a bed, waiting in death for agony. Since the whole family relocated to this strange land, he was wary that his future offspring would forget where they came from, where they have been through —and worse, they would forget him.
If I have found favor, was his plea. As if he abandoned his son of the coat of beautiful colors as a gift to his heart, forgetting all of his own trials and heaping up the abuse on himself. As if he had to ask permission to die in his arms! As if, he finally realized, the weight of his worthlessness upon himself.
His son, the governor, carefully listened to his father's heart. He meditated upon each and every one of his father's words. As if all the abuse he suffered, all the scorn and temptation and broken cells and dreams would be simply forgiven and forgotten! As his father softly spoke his humble request, he felt compelled to evaluate his own life —how all the pain in his heart transformed into favor. Did he deserve it? Did he ask for it? Then, why does his father have to stoop so low and ask for his permission? He never abandoned him —not now, nor never!
To carry his bones, far away from a land the son could never remember. One of milk and honey where he was supposed to have had his happy childhood, not aimlessly toiling as a slave!
But if he never faced that moment of slavery, he would never experience the freedom of God's favor over himself.
If I have found favor, said the father, his bones would be carried far away from the strange land. For their favor would carry the whole family to the ends of the earth.