Genesis 32 -- Jacob Wrestles God And Himself

God had told Jacob to return to Bethel, yet on the way he would enter the land of his brother Esau, who he hadn’t seen since stealing Isaac’s blessing twenty years prior.  Despite God’s direction and promise to protect him, Jacob began to worry and scheme.  “He adopted a condescending attitude that wasn’t befitting to the man God had chosen to carry on the Abrahamic covenant,” my commentary said, “Calling Esau my lord and himself your servant.”  He also devised a lavish gift, hoping perhaps to bribe Esau into forgiving him.

Despite all this, my commentary had a lot of good things to say about Jacob’s prayer for God’s protection.  He prayed based on God’s covenant, and God’s command that he leave Laban’s land.  He reminded God of how God had cared for him.  He prayed that God’s purpose wouldn’t fail, and he reminded God of the promises God had made to him at Bethel.

The only negative thing seemed to be that “he was praying in desperation and not in confidence.”

Rather than completely trusting God, Jacob decided to try to appease Esau.  “Whatever we do that isn’t motivated by faith is sin, no matter how successful it may appear.  The real problem wasn’t Esau; it was Jacob, and God was now going to solve that problem.”

Having moved his family to safety, Jacob found himself alone, and that night he met the Lord.  “God meets us at whatever level He finds us in order to lift us to where He wants us to be … Jacob discovered that he’d spent his life fighting God and resisting his will, and that the only way to victory was through surrender.  The Lord cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him.”

Father, I’m so glad that You met me and conquered me all those years ago.  I’d been fighting You, thinking I was winning when all I was doing was hurting myself in my pride.  Help my sons to see this and learn it before they reach the same point.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 31 -- It Was Time

It was time.  Jacob had labored for Laban for 14 years for his wives and six more years for his animals.  God had placed a holy dissatisfaction with life in Jacob’s heart six years earlier as a means of showing him the time for breaking away was coming.  Jacob had also noticed through circumstances – his in-laws weren’t as friendly to him as before – that the times were changing.  God spoke to Jacob in this chapter.  The word of God is our most important indicator of change.  Here God said, “Go back to the land of your fathers.”

Jacob consulted with his wives about what he was hearing from God and they agreed.  The one thing he didn’t do correctly was to face Laban with the news.  Instead, he waited until Laban was three days away and then quickly left in a caravan.  “This was an act of fear and unbelief, not an act of faith,” my commentary said.  “It isn’t enough to know and do the will of God; we must also do His will in the way He wants it done, the way that will glorify Him the most.”

Despite the fact that God had warned Laban in a dream not to interfere with Jacob, Laban chased him and confronted him, for his household idols were missing.  Despite God’s blessings over the years, Laban still evidently prayed to idols and feared the loss of them.  Rachel had stolen them without Jacob’s knowledge.  We aren’t told whether she placed value on them and desired to worship them or whether she simply wanted to keep her father from using them. 

The two men recited their relationship over the years while building a memorial that would serve as “a monument to suspicion and fear” and a boundary that neither would cross.  Jacob recalled God’s protection of him and gave honor to the Lord:  “Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.”  I did notice that up to now, God was always, “the God of my father” and not “my God”, despite the fact that He continued to protect him.

Father, remind me to listen for Your directions for my life in the inner directions of my heart, through circumstances, and through Your Word.  Help me to have discernment and to test my thoughts with other Christians I trust.  Then help me to step out boldly when You give me new marching orders.  Let me glorify You in the way in which I respond.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 30 -- When A Win Is Not A Win

It’s sad listening to the conversations in this chapter and seeing the two sisters actually thinking they are winning over each other after giving their slave-girls to Jacob to produce children on their own behalf.  It wasn’t winning at all, but losing.  I saw the very same thing happening with my younger son.  He’s at that pivotal age where he believes he can now do anything he wants and particularly sees rebellion as a win on his part as he breaks away from my rule over his life.  Even failing miserably at it doesn’t seem to be a loss for him.

Once we take our eyes off of God and what He has planned for our lives, that often happens.  And as I told him just the other night, God will not allow His children to sin successfully. 

Father, my heart breaks for the stubborn willfulness that sin produces when we think we know better than You the best things for ourselves.  So often You have to get us to the bottom of the well before we can understand that we’ve been trying to live life upside down. 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 29 -- Watching Jacob Grow

I enjoyed my commentary’s focus on how Jacob’s character was developed through his trials in this chapter.  “With Jacob, marriage wasn’t an option; it was an obligation.  The success of the covenant promises God gave to Abraham depended on Jacob’s finding a wife and with her, building a family … that would bring the promised Redeemer into the world.”

Jacob’s sighting of Rachel at the well wasn’t “a fortunate coincidence” as the world might say, but a divine appointment.  God used his attraction to her to initiate His plans for His covenant promises.  He was so enamored with Rachel that he never noticed that his future father-in-law made NO promise that he would give Rachel to Jacob at the end of his promised service.

Strangely, we see a father hurting his own daughter (Rachel) to fulfill his own schemes at the wedding.  And how awkward that next day must have been for Jacob, not to mention having to complete his marital duties during the marriage week, wanting only to be with the woman he really loved, yet having to instead spend bedroom time with her sister!  Yet in that culture, the bride’s father controlled.  Jacob “meekly accepted his lot and went back to work for another seven years,” but celebrated his second honeymoon the following week!  “Little by little, Jacob was learning to submit to God’s loving hand of discipline and was growing in faith and character.”

Laban didn’t realize the “the Lord was ruling and overruling in the entire event.  ‘There is no wisdom, no might, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.’”  Through it all, God was producing the beginnings of the twelve tribes of Israel – building a nation from which the Redeemer would come.  And God saw Jacob’s heart – that he naturally loved Rachel more than Leah, and He balanced things out by making Leah fertile (building the family, including the line of Judah from her), while Rachel couldn’t conceive.  If nothing else, that kept Jacob doing his marital duties, through which the redeemer would come, even though his heart and affections were elsewhere.

More evidence of Jacob’s spiritual growth come from this as “Leah and Rachel treated Jacob like a servant and used him as a pawn in their family bargaining, and he patiently bore with it,” my commentary said.

Father, help me to see Your hand working in my own family.  Show me how to help my sons see Your sovereignty in their own lives, even when they seem unwilling to let You lead.  I want them to grow to depend on You and not on themselves.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 28 -- A Sudden Life Change For Jacob

Life really changed for Jacob.  He’d always stayed at home and had a special link with his mother, but now the threat of retaliation from Esau would disrupt his world.  His mother used finding a wife for him as an excuse to hopefully save his life.  She likely hoped that a few months would pass, the whole thing would blow over, and Jacob would return to her with grandkids soon to follow, but Rebekah never saw him again.  when he returned some twenty years later, she would be dead.

Whereas Abraham had sent a caravan with his servant to find a bride for Isaac, Jacob seemed to be traveling alone, and one night he warily laid down on the ground, with a rock for a pillow, and dreamed.  God was revealing Himself to him in that dream, and when Jacob awoke, he remembered all that God had promised him:  that He was the God of Jacob’s grandfather and father; that He was giving Jacob the land where he slept – he wouldn’t be just passing through it; that this single guy WOULD have a wife and many sons and many grandkids; that everyone on earth would be blessed because of it; and perhaps what he really needed to hear on this very scary journey alone into an unknown land and future – that God was going with him, would protect him, and would bring him back home, never leaving him until every promise was fulfilled.

Jacob finally realized that God was present in his life, but he never knew it!  And hearing those promises, Jacob accepted them and agreed that God would be his God.  And he worshiped him there.

Father, I remember my own encounter with You, when I’d stepped so very far away, yet You kept after me and drew me back with Your love.  You’ve blessed me and I trust You to direct my life.  Before, I was afraid that You would take me where I didn’t want to go, but now I know that You change my heart so that by the time I am there, I am exactly where I want to be – with You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 27 -- A Bum Rap For Jacob?

I loved the way my commentary wove the characters together in this chapter.

Isaac, it said, was in decline and put himself ahead of the Lord by thinking he was surely about to die and then deciding to eat a feast of wild game and bless Esau.  He and Rebekah had caused the family feud, it said, by their selfish favoritism and instead of healing it, he was perpetuating it and destroying his family.  Knowing God had said before their births that Jacob would rule, Isaac still planned to overrule that.  He knew that Esau had despised his birthright and sold it to Jacob, and that he’d disqualified himself by marrying heathen women, yet he still tried to overrule God.

It also said Rebekah wasn’t believing without scheming.  She apparently didn’t trust God to get the job done and eavesdropped and lied and connived.  She could have taken Jacob to Isaac and reminded him of God’s message, but decided to use deception instead.

Jacob had to compound lies with more lies to pull off the deception.  Afterwards, Isaac trembled greatly with agitation.  My commentary said it was because he knew that the Lord had overruled his own selfish plan so that his favorite son did not receive the blessing.

For Esau, who’d despised a godly life, he felt it wasn’t his fault, but his brother’s.  He loved blaming others.

A footnote in my commentary said it all:  “At no time do we find God rebuking Jacob for cheating somebody … Jacob was wrong in deceiving his father, but he was right in believing God’s Word and knowing that the covenant blessing was his.  He didn’t steal the birthright; he bought it … It was Laban who defrauded Jacob … Throughout Jacob’s life, God fulfilled the basic meaning of his name, ‘God will protect’.”

Father, thank You for a new perspective on this vital story.  Help me to believe without scheming, trusting that You will protect me as well.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Genesis 26 -- Redigging Old Wells

“True faith is always tested, either by temptations within us or trials around us, because a faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted,” my commentary said again.  And Isaac’s faith was about to be tested.  Isaac faced a famine as his father had.  God specifically told him not to go to Egypt, “but live in the land where I tell you to live.  Stay in this land…”

It’s hard to tell how well Isaac obeyed, because he traveled to Gerar, the Philistine capital.  Although technically he had moved, he was still within the boundaries of Canaan.  But like his father, he worried that he’d be killed to get his wife, and Isaac lied that she was his sister, too.  Isaac settled down after being found out, becoming a farmer, and God richly blessed him, to the point that the Philistines worried about his strength and influence and began stopping up the wells that Abraham had dug.  This finally forced him to move to Beersheba.

There God appeared to him and again blessed him, and Isaac built an altar and worshiped Him there.  Seeing how God was blessing him in spite of their best efforts, the Philistine king came and made an agreement with Isaac to avoid future conflict.

However, another conflict began at home.  “His worldly son Esau had married two heathen wives who caused grief to Isaac and Rebekah.”

Isaac’s experience with redigging the old wells his father had originally dug brought up an important message in my commentary for churches today:  “The church keeps looking for something new, when all we need is to dig again the old wells of spiritual life that God’s people have depended on from the beginning – the Word of God, prayer, worship, faith, the power of the Spirit, sacrifice, and service – wells that we’ve allowed the enemy to fill up.”

Father, help me, like Isaac to discern when to be confronter and when to be a peacemaker.  I know that my faith gets tested, and I must remember that it can’t be trusted until it is tested.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford