Continuity

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him.
Genesis 49:28

One generation carries on after another. This is a recurring theme in Genesis where a repeating refrain is "these are the generations of...". This passage expands upon that theme with some specific blessings that Jacob gives to each of his sons, prophetically describing how each tribe will later come to function in the future nation of Israel.

From one couple, God populated the world. From human sins and choices, God has made Himself known, provided for access to Him, and graciously redeemed people to Himself. All of that is in Genesis. And it is told in the context of families. From Adam and Eve, to Noah and his sons, from Abraham and Sarai, on to Jacob and his sons. In all the story of human history told in the book, the clear denominator is family and home as relating to God and His grace and revelation.

So despite the vast cultural differences separating me from the patriarchs, I can identify with that common theme. I have a family and I relate to family. I am called to come to God in the context of my life and that includes family. And so I will trust and follow Him, while caring for the needs of those whom God has called me to love and need first -- family!

Technorati Tags: Generations,Family,Jacob

Old hands on young heads.

And he blessed Joseph and said,
        "The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,
        the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys;
and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;
and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."
Genesis 48:15-16

Maybe it is just my current wistfulness, but a part of me identifies with the patriarchal blessing like never before. Age has a way of increasing your identification with generational moments in scripture. This is one of them. Right now my kids are adolescents. I have very little precious time left with them until they will be adults making decisions on their own. It is coming faster than I want it to arrive!

So when I read this passage where a grandfather through blessing passes on a spiritual heritage to grandsons, I sit back and think hard. I would call Jacob's story checkered with spiritual failure (on a good day) and marked by copious outpourings of God's grace. His sons were for the most part as spiritually inconsistent as he was (with the exception of Joseph and perhaps Benjamin). Yet God had chosen this patriarchal home to become his source of future and present blessing. And from this generation would arise the vast nation of Israel. Ephraim and Manasseh represented the work that God was going to do. Jacob knew this and as he aged, his heart grew closer to God so that now his finest spiritual work would occur with the blessings he would pass on to the tribes of Israel.

Grandpa Israel, the prophet and the patriarch, places feeble withering hands on two little grandsons and pronounces a future for their tribes that would come to pass. Ephraim would become strong. Joshua would arise from Ephraim's stock. That tribe would become instrumental in the kingdom only to fall away and be judged by God. But in the plan of God, the younger son would rise in prominence. Jacob foresaw this and passed it on with his prophetic blessing.

I am far removed from this culture and manner of God's dealings. I cannot expect the kind of prophetic insight into lives that Jacob was given by God. Still, my two children are important to God and He has wonderful and wise plans for them. I need all the wisdom from Him I can get to help guide them toward what God wants. It is not easy. They are now teenagers and well on the path of their independence. I feel that it is important to them to know God's guidance and my blessing for them as they seek to follow Him. Jacob's example gives me fuel for thought as I parent my kids the next few years.

Technorati Tags: Jacob,Blessing,Parenting

Take Me to Egypt

There are a lot of personal struggles behind my reflections on this passage. Let’s just say God has me in a place right now where I am powerless (I don’t like that feeling) and must trust Him to show Himself strong and provide comfort and strength not only for myself, but for others I care about. It is not easy to have circumstances break your routine. I think I see in Jacob some of what I should be. It is easy to stay in the Promised Land and starve. It is tougher to let God lead you to a strange land to be fed there.

Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.
Genesis 47:27

Take me to Egypt
to the foreign land
with strange people
and circumstances
that I can't understand

if in Egypt
I will find health
and blessing beyond
my present famine
and thrive in Your wealth

then take me there
by what means You choose
and in Your time I know
that what I will gain from You
will be worth the routine I lose

and temporary Egypt
may be just the place
where finally I find comfort
and health and food again
as mercy shines in Your grace

Take me to Egypt
and let me grow
beyond my comfortable home
and my desires and plans
by faith, Your grace I'll know.

Technorati Tags: Jacob,Trust,Guidance,Poetry

Enough guidance for the next few steps.

And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, "Jacob, Jacob." And he said, "Here am I."  Then he said, "I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation."
Genesis 46:2-3

This chapter recounts a father/son reunion that has been a lifetime in the making. And it involved trusting God above all else. Jacob is at this time old and travel was a difficult proposition. His sons return to him with an official government delegation from Egypt with news that Joseph is alive and well. Jacob embraces a new hope, and makes the decision to travel to see his lost son once before he dies. Interestingly, there is  no anger at the other sons for their actions toward Joseph years before. There is just joy at the reunion.

And God meets Jacob along the way assuring him that he would make the journey and see his son. He assured him that it was in Egypt that his clan would grow to become a great nation. This was the plan of God all along. Of course, the story would eventually include hardship and slavery, but in God's grand tapestry, that would be used to draw a people to Him. For now, it was enough for Jacob to act in faith, trust God for the strength for the journey, prepare for the emotional reunion, and believe that his life would end in Egypt at God's design.

God rarely lets us in on all the ins and outs of His plans. We get glimpse to give us hope and that is enough to keep faith burning in our hearts. If we knew every nuance and every bump along the path, we might shrink back. But faith is there for us, as we need it, in incredible supply, from a God Who cannot exhaust His love and grace. 

Technorati Tags: Guidance,Providence,Jacob

The worst in us might go to them.

The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah.

Genesis 34:13

Here is a case in which all of Jacob’s oldest sons acted just as he would act. They were deceivers. Jacob may have been given a new name, but his old nature lives in his sons. They felt justified in their actions because of the horrible sin perpetuated against their sister. She is raped by a noble in the land, and then that noble has the gall to ask for her in marriage.

Their plan was simple: weaken Shechem and his tribe through deceit and then murder the entire clan. That is exactly what they did. They insisted that in order for the marriage to take place, all adult men in the clan of Shechem would need to be circumcised. Then, after the operations had occurred, and then men were in no condition to defend themselves, Jacob’s sons brutally slaughtered every last one of them in retaliation.

Jacob’s pattern of deception knew no bounds. He would lie to and deceive the ones he was to love the most: his own family. The second generation of that sin found his sons acting more like a gang of thugs than a godly generation of good sons! This is the price we pay as parents when the worst of us may find its way into our kids.

I am seriously thinking this episode over in the light of having one teenager (really two…Zach turns twelve today, but I think in our culture teen issues start about age ten now) and knowing the struggles that are there. May God give me the grace, humility, and insight to keep them from becoming what is worst in me!

Technorati Tags: Genesis,Jacob,parenting

A New Name | A True Name

Then he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed."

Genesis 32:2

This chapter marks a key turning point in the story of Jacob. His has been a most disappointing spiritual journey to date. He has been the most materialistically consumed of all the patriarchs. And now, with his return to the Promised Land, we see him encountering God in life changing ways.

This episode puzzles me, and I am not real sure if I can answer all the questions I have in this passage. I accept it as a real historical account though. God comes to Jacob when he is alone. He has sent his family behind him. He has divided his home like a military encampment, sending a gift to appease Esau ahead of him, his family in clearly favorited groupings behind him, and himself, alone in the middle. It is during that alone time that God comes to him in a sleepless night and in the form of a wrestling man, God jousts with Jacob until the break of day. A lifetime of outdoor shepherding must have made a strong man of the former mama’s favorite tentboy chef, because Jacob is in a draw match with God until finally God just touches him in the hip. With that touch God wins the bout and renames Jacob.

From this moment on, Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel the wrestler because he has prevailed against the Lord. His reward for the battle is a permanent limp. But the new name gives him a chance to forge a new spiritual identity with a personal relationship with God, which is exactly what was needed at this juncture. It adds spiritual drama to the personal drama already enfolding in the text, and shows us what God is accomplishing in this story.

Like Jacob, there are times when I need to be wrestled to my senses. I need the clean break, the new name, and the fresh start. And just like Jacob, I find such refreshing in the touch of God, even if God makes me wrestle to get it, and a limp is left to remind me of God’s touch. That is the way God works. And the crutch I need in order to move along again becomes a precious thing.

Technorati Tags: Genesis,Jacob,Israel

Sometimes God wants you to move on.

2    And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before.
3    Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you."

Genesis 31:2-3

This was a difficult point in the life of Jacob. He had founded his home in the land of his mother’s kin. And a large family had come to him in these shepherd days with Laban. He had amassed agricultural wealth in large herds. But that very blessing was becoming a source of friction between Jacob and his father-in-law. And Laban was not treating his son-in-law well as a result.

Yet, despite the difficulty, God had a bigger plan in mind for Jacob that involved getting him back to the land that God had promised Jacob’s father and grandfather. So the move must happen. And it is God’s will. It has been God’s will for generations already. Jacob is just caught in the urgent every day part of the experience of it.

There are times where God wants us to move on. There are promises to claim beyond our current experience. Sometimes personal pain or misery are indicators that we might want to listen to where God wants us. Jacob was not a strong example of faith, but in this instance, he was ready and willing to hear and obey the voice of the God on the matter. He may not have moved on in the best way (he snuck out rather than confront his father-in-law) but even in that God intervened (Laban was warned by God not to strike out against Jacob). Jacob obeyed. God blessed him. God received the glory and is clearly in charge of the situation. That is as it should be, even when we are faced with the tough decisions in moving on.

Technorati Tags: Genesis,Jacob,Moving

An episode that argues best for monogamy.

22    Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.
23    She conceived and bore a son and said, "God has taken away my reproach."
24    And she called his name Joseph, saying, "May the LORD add to me another son!"
Genesis 30:22-24

This chapter is one of the more unpleasant episodes to read in all of scripture. Leah and Rachel reach heights of sibling rivalry regarding sexual fertility in their bizarre marriage to Jacob that simply stagger all common sense thinking. I find this chapter to be the best argument ever for monogamy! What man in his right mind would want to fight among four women? By the time we get to Issachar's birth, Jacob has become nothing more than breeding stock for argument... literally!

But we get to see God work even in the most sinful of family situations. Jacob's home is hardly honoring to God, yet God in His mercy and in keeping of the covenant with Abraham, keeps blessing. And Joseph becomes in the whole string of patriarchal accounts the most faithful of all. He could not help the circumstances of his birth, nor the bitter fighting that would mark his family and write a tragic story for him. But God was slowly making something of him that would be remarkable.

So even in the worst of situations, God's grace prevails. God's plan does not fail. And Jacob's family is living proof of that sovereign truth.

Technorati Tags: Genesis,Polygamy,Monogamy,Jacob,Joseph

Dysfunction Junction: the next generation

Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife.

Genesis 29:28

I find it remarkable that God worked beyond the sinful machinations within the families of the patriarchs in order to create a promised nation, give them a promised land, and covenant with them in a promised relationship. None of them was perfect as a family. Abraham basically pimped his wife out to pagan kings. He also committed polygamy at the suggestion of his wife. Isaac showed overt favoritism to one son over another, fighting with his wife in the process. Jacob was polygamous, eventually fathering the twelve tribes of Israel through four different women. And Jacob’s family was a factious mess, headed up by a neurotic, greedy, deceiving father.

Yet somehow God redeemed this mess in such a way that He clearly is shown to be the powerful provider of grace. God made the covenant with Abram. God kept it with him and his descendents. And somehow there was enough faith to satisfy His faithful love.

Families probably all have some level of dysfunction. It is inevitably the result of sin. The bigger challenge might be to find a definition of truly functional family and see it in real life! So God moves beyond human failures and relationship in ruin. He brings glory to Himself even in the most difficult of family environments. And His Word provides the resources to move beyond our sins and faults to create a home worthy of His glory.

Technorati Tags: Genesis,Family,Jacob,Dysfunctional Family

God Does It.

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
Genesis 28:15

When God makes a promise
He keeps it first and well
and my best efforts
would land me in Hell

Grace is where God works
and heaven his home
so when He promises to be with me
I will never be alone

And the times when I fail
Him He will pull, tug and call
until I return in repentance
and He saves me from my fall

Other times in obedience
I follow straight and true
and He blesses with His mercy
and joys are given too

So I will know His presence
here now in Bethel, God's own home
and I will look for His hand now
for my life is His to own

Technorati Tags: Bethel,Jacob,Genesis