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.

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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.

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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

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Bible Study Magazine New Giveaway.

Bible Study Magazine and Mars Hill are giving away 20 copies of Mark Driscoll’s new book, Vintage Church. Not only that, but they are also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of their Bible Study Library software! Enter to win on the Bible Study Magazine Mark Driscoll page, then take a look at all the cool tools they have to take your Bible study to the next level!

When families fail.

Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob."
Genesis 27:41

This is the fruit of a sin-filled dysfunctional family. It started with the horrible practice of parents playing favorites with their sons. It moved on to power politics within a family in which a mother and her son (Jacob) plot against the culture and leadership of a father and the oldest son (Esau). The result was deception, broken spirits, disappointment, and bitter hate.

Esau articulates the worst that can happen when the closest relationships that we should have on earth turn sour. He is plotting to kill his brother over the deception, trickery, and robbery of his blessing. He does not remember selling his birthright, but he is bitter over the loss of the blessing of his father, because he was closest to dad and felt he deserved it most of all.

This dynamic gets repeated even today. It may not end in murderous revenge thinking, but it might, given the right circumstances. I know as a counselor that the family dynamic can foster a lot of bitterness. Sinners sin against sinners and sinners that get sinned against respond sinfully. That is exactly what happened in the family tents of Isaac and Rebekah. And it occurs in the manicured lawns and Parade of Homes domiciles of my culture!

The most valuable commitment in relationships is in these close family settings. It is worth committing to biblical standards. It must be guarded, protected, watched, nurtured, and taught. And nothing else I do is nearly as important as helping my family work through conflicts and sins with grace and forgiveness. It starts with guarding my own heart, moves into guarding my unique oneness with my wife, and extends to the character and commitments of my children.

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Blessing a new generation.

28    They said, "We see plainly that the LORD has been with you; so we said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you,
29    that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the LORD.'"

Genesis 26:28-29

Just a simple observation for today: The covenant that God made with Abraham promised him that nations would bless him. This is the first reward of the promise in Abraham’s son Isaac. Abimelech and the Philistines had a tumultuous relationship with both Abraham and Isaac. Both patriarchs had deceived them similarly. Both had managed to become quite wealthy in Canaan’s territory. But it is Abimelech who comes to Isaac now making a treaty of peace. And the basis of him doing so is that the pagan king clearly sees that Isaac has a unique situation with God.

God keeps His promises. He made a vast, national, global, and epic covenant with Abraham. He is keeping it to this day. And the rest of Genesis will show how this blessing keeps coming to each succeeding generation.

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