Today’s
Scripture Reading (April 30, 2012): Genesis 31
Sometimes we live as if God will never ask us to do something hard. It is
one of the things that I have noticed inside the church. If things get tough,
we begin to think that God can’t be in it. And sometimes we are right, but only
sometimes. Sometimes, God chooses the hard path for us – not because we have
done anything wrong, but because he is God and he needs us there.
Jacob is learning. Earlier in the story it was all about him, but now he
is starting to recognize, not only the presence of others, but about the
presence of God. But things are getting tough in the land of Laban. And to
complicate the situation, Jacob has seemed to run out of options. He had made a
practice of burning the bridges behind him. The easiest path for Jacob would
have been to have taken his family and his wealth and to blaze a new trail. He
could have gone where he was unknown, but that wasn’t the plan that God had for
him. God was asking him to go home, back to the land of his fathers, and to his
relatives – and there was really only one relative that Jacob was thinking
about, his brother Esau who had committed himself to the idea of killing him.
God’s path was a hard one. And Jacob knew that it would be a dangerous
one. But he would be willing, as long as God was with him. Maybe one of the
hardest things to realize is that God wants to be present in and to restore our
relationships. Sometimes that just isn’t possible (it didn’t seem to be with
Laban and his family), but when it is, God will take us in that direction. With
Jacob and Esau, the restoration needed to begin and would begin with the help
of God.
With us, often restoration is impossible. But when God enters the
situation, and if both parties will let him, then the impossible becomes very
possible. And if the relationships can be fixed, we need to be a willing party
in the process.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Genesis 32
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