A Note from DT
As we’ve studied the life of Jacob I have really been struck by the patience and faithfulness of the Lord. Numerous times Jacob met the Lord in profound encounters and received both blessings and promises from Him. God told him that He would never leave him, spoke blessings over him that he would thrive in life, and even gave him a new name(identity). It seemed that every time Jacob encountered the Lord he would step into peace for a moment but then would go right back to living in the stress and anxiety to which he was accustomed. Think of it…the Lord physically showed up and Jacob tried to wrestle Him for His blessing, something God had already decided to give to him freely! Jacob was fighting to get something that he already had been given! God was not wrestling Jacob to keep him from accessing His blessing. He was allowing Jacob to struggle with Him and to see His face so that Jacob would come out of his old identity and into that of a beloved son and heir…someone who could actually receive what God was desiring to give him.
The Lord always took care of Jacob and years later (Genesis 35) God called him back to the place where he had first met Him in a place called Bethel(House of God). Jacob then removed all of the demonic idols from the possession of his family and company and returned to the place where he first met God. The beauty of this story is that when he gets there God doesn’t call to mind all of his sketchiness, the fact that he had tolerated the connection to idols or anything else, in stead He blesses him and once again calls him by his true God-given name. God never changed throughout Jacob’s whole life. He was always there to speak into his person and to call him into his true destiny. He never disqualified him.
A major take-away from this story is that the will of God for you will never change. His favor and blessing, His direction for your life, even His perfect design of your true identity, all of these things are fully set in His heart and His will. His plans for each of us are wonderful. It is up to us to accept them by surrendering our life’s direction to Him, trusting God to bring his promises for us to pass. Jacob wasn’t waiting on God to receive the blessing, it was God who was patiently waiting on Jacob to come into that place of alignment where he could truly accept what God was so desiring for him to step into. It is the same for us. Just as the prodigal son and his religious older brother were living right in the midst of their inheritance without entering into it, could it be that our ‘process’ of ‘waiting’ on God to step into His plan is actually God waiting on us to accept what He has freely given and to follow Him with our whole heart and life? I believe so. To be directed in this life by anything other than the plans and purposes of God is to be led astray. To some this will sound extreme but in this life, the Lord is our Shepherd, or He is not. Israel(Jacob) would eventually become the first call Him Shepherd(Gen 48:15). If you can see it, being faithful to connect to God and wrestle over these issues of identity without letting go is actually an aspect of walking with Him. The struggle is real, but we aren’t struggling with God as much as we are struggling against our old identity. The ‘old man’ or the ‘flesh’ cannot inherit the kingdom of God(1 Corinth 15:50) and that is the point. This thing is about inheritance. Jacob was being delivered from his old identity in order to be able to receive what God had for him and the same thing is happening with us. Our Father in Heaven is calling people back into His household and to the family business. Nothing could be more important. At times it may seem unconventional but He knows the way, He is the Way.
-DT