Read with Me
Genesis 28:1-5 (HCSB)
Isaac summoned Jacob, blessed him, and commanded him: “Don’t take a wife from the Canaanite women. Go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father. Marry one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you become an assembly of peoples. May God give you and your offspring the blessing of Abraham so that you may possess the land where you live as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.” So Isaac sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
Listen with Me
Whether it was Rebekah’s somewhat dramatic statement that if Jacob married a Canaanite woman she would positively die (Genesis 27:46b), or Isaac’s own awareness that Esau was plotting Jacob’s death, Isaac decided to send his younger son away for a while to his uncle Laban to find a wife among his cousins. It was a wise move, and it fit well with God’s own plans for Jacob.
Even though the blessing had been received by deceit, Isaac understood that once an oath had been sworn before God it could never be rescinded. Jacob had received both the promise and the blessing, and they were his – there was no fighting that. So, as he was instructing Jacob on his next moves, he restated the blessing over him.
Key among the points restated by Isaac were that God would bless him, multiply him, and grow him into a great nation which would then return to the land and be able to take it over. Isaac was not aware how God would accomplish this, first growing Jacob’s own family with four wives, twelve sons, and one daughter, and then later settling them into the hothouse of Egypt to grow them into a vast people. But Isaac knew that God had promised to do all of that, and that He never broke a promise.
Paddan-aram was a long way away – too far for Esau to go in pursuit of Jacob. But as Jacob went, he had to travel light. He took only the necessities. No flocks or herds, or even a tent. He only took a couple of changes of clothing, food for the first stages of his trip, and a bit of silver to buy things that he needed along the way. So began the next stage of his life’s journey.
Pray with Me
Father, the fact is that You must still sometimes remove us from our comfort zones to facilitate the next steps in our development. Sometimes that takes a positive upheaval in our lives. Sometimes it is simply our being willing to move to another place, to switch jobs, or to cut some of the ties we have made that are misdirecting us or holding us back. I know that You have done that a couple of times in my own life. Lord, help me to never hold things so tightly that I am not willing to let them go when that is needed to move forward into Your plan. Amen.
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