Jacob--On the Lam, but Going with the Lord

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2027:1-28:22&version=NIV1984

            What a complicated, messy, fascinating story!  Here we have Jacob, whose name means ‘deceiver,’ who lives up to his name by swiping the birthright and blessing right out from under Esau.  Consequently, Jacob flees for his life into what will become a 20-year exile, and still the Lord appears to Him and says, “I’ll bring you back and bless you.”

            So, first, again we have a member of Abraham’s family who is not willing to take God at His Word and to wait for Him to deliver what He promised.  I’m not sure how much more commentary is needed.  We just read the stories of Abraham and saw the various ways that he tried to ‘force God’s hand’ and get the promises accomplished in ways that made sense to him.  And he constantly had the Lord saying, “Not your way; my way!”  Abraham’s grandson needs the same lesson.

            And that’s the second thing:  Jacob is going to get that lesson.  For today, he is on the road to exile.  Over the next couple of days’ readings, he’s going to be deceived and ill-used himself.  Nothing teaches a lesson quite like being on the receiving end of your own bad behavior.

            Yet, third, the Lord hasn’t abandoned Jacob.  Despite Jacob’s behavior, the Lord fully intends to keep His promises.  That’s something for Jacob to hold on to in the coming years, as he learns to wait patiently for the Lord.

            So, applications?  There’s the constant theme through Genesis (and a lot of the rest of the Scriptures) that a major virtue of the faith is patience.  I think I’ve made this point before, but I struggle with this.  I know that we are to be patient and wait for the Lord; I also believe that the Lord has given us our ‘reason and all our senses’ and that He wants us to think things through.  I tend to cringe when Christians talk like they’re waiting for God to open the heavens and take care of everything for them.  How do you balance human agency and ultimate dependence on God?  I don’t have a good answer.  I think what I try for is to think carefully, to plan well, and to work hard—and to hold the whole thing up to the Lord in prayer that His glory would be enhanced and His plans advanced.

            Then, there’s the lesson about consequences.  We sometimes lose sight of the fact that God lets us endure the effects of our bad behavior.  We’d like to think that forgiveness means no consequences, but it doesn’t always.  If I lose my temper and verbally blast someone, I can apologize and they can sincerely forgive me.  But you know that relationship isn’t going to be the same for a while.  In enduring the consequences, we learn wisdom.

            Finally, we should learn to rely on God’s promise and goodness, especially in rough times.  The promises of God grab us as babies in Baptism and they shape and direct our entire lives.  Like Jacob heard the promise of God before he began his misadventures in Paddan Aram, so we heard the promises of God at the outset of our lives, and we want to let those promises guide us throughout life.