As a kid, whenever my parents said we were going to go do
something fun, I hung on their every word: If we were stopping at Dairy Queen
after church, I was watching for Dad to turn on the turn signal as we neared
the driveway. If they said we were going to Grandma’s house for Christmas, I
started packing. Funny how I wasn’t that excited for the spanking they promised
if I did x, y, or z… but that’s another topic altogether. Anyway, if Dad didn’t
turn the signal on to go in to Dairy Queen, I was quick to remind him, “You
SAID we were going to Dairy Queen after church!” He would either quickly turn
in at the next driveway, or tell me he had changed his mind, but I sure wasn’t
going to let simple forgetfulness be the cause of my suffering the loss of an
ice cream!
This week I stumbled on a story in the Bible of someone who
reminded God of his promises. Considering the rest of his recorded, Jacob was
not at the top of my suspect list for an example of a man of faith. Despite his
presence in the line of the famed threesome “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”, most
of what we know of Jacob’s life involves treachery and deceit. Of course, God
chose him for the line of Christ, and the Hall of Faith, so he can’t be all
that bad, but in this one passage we get a glimpse of a vulnerable man’s
conversation with God.
Genesis 32 picks up as Jacob and his entourage have left
Laban and were heading back “home”. As they neared the home country, messengers
reported to Jacob that Esau was approaching. And he wasn’t out on a family
vacation: he had 400 men with him. I don’t know what Esau’s original plan was
when he left home for that journey, but my guess is that this didn’t start out
as a friendly neighborhood welcoming committee. I may never know. All that
matters for our purpose today is that Jacob was “greatly afraid and
distressed”. HE seemed to believe he was in danger from this man that he had
wronged years before.
So how did Jacob respond?
First he divided his one huge camp into two smaller camps,
thinking he could at least save SOME of his family. Wouldn’t you love to be a
fly on the wall for THAT conversation? “Hmmm…. Which half of the camp do I love
the least and should put in the FIRST camp Esau would come to?” Yeah, that’d go
over good. But I digress. Point is, he took immediate action to protect his
family.
As soon as he had a chance, he stopped for a good
heart-to-heart with God, though. Here’s how his side of the conversation went
(emphasis mine):
9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father
Isaac, O Lord who said
to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of
steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant,
for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 11 Please deliver me from the hand of my brother,
from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the
mothers with the children. 12 But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the
sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”
I love what he did here. Like a kid reminding Daddy of the
ice cream run (with at least a little more desperation), Jacob approached the
God of the universe and pleaded with Him to remember His promises. There is a
big difference here, though: when I was little, I would remind my Daddy in
hopes that it would change his behavior. For Jacob to remind God of his
promises, though? I would offer that it wasn’t so that GOD would change his
behavior (he ALWAYS keeps his promises), but so that Jacob would see his heart
changed to faith, rather than fear. Requesting God to do something is part of
prayer. But if He’s already said he would do something, it WILL happen. Maybe
not in my timing or by my methods, but it WILL happen. It’s already a fact, it
just hasn’t happened yet. With this in mind, let’s see what Jacob’s prayer
looked like.
First, he acknowledged who this God was that he was praying
to. Maybe in human terms, he was trying to drop names “God? Do you remember
that great relationship you had with my Grandpa, and how he walked by faith? Oh
and of course you know my dad, Isaac, that man that was basically offered as a
sacrifice to you? Well we’re pretty tight, me and them, so maybe you could do
me a solid for their sake?” But I don’t think that’s what this was. By
acknowledging His prior relationship with his Dad and Grandpa, Jacob was
reminding himself of God’s track record. Abraham had walked in faith. God had
called him out, promising to make a great nation of him, promising a Savior
through his line (and in turn through Isaac and Jacob). This was the same God
that he’d wrestled with at Bethel. As believers, when we find ourselves in a
jam, we can remember who God is, and his track record. For me, it might be, “Oh
God that brought my Dad to salvation in time to meet my mom so they could build
a Godly family… Oh God that brought me to yourself when I was only three,
saving me from so much… Oh God who rescued me from being kidnapped as a child
(true story, but for another day)… Oh God who has comforted me through
heartache… Oh God who has loved me despite my wicked heart…” You get the idea. Think
of it as one more opportunity to remember your Ebenezers!
Remember who this God is that you serve!!!
Next, Jacob goes back to the instructions God had given him.
He reminded him that indeed GOD was the one who had told him to return to this
country. This was a humble thing – you notice that he followed it up with “I am
not worthy…”. It’s not a conversation of an indignant, snobbish “I’m only here
cuz you told me to be. I told you it wasn’t a good idea.” Go back humbly to His
word, and make sure you’re on the right track: ARE you doing what he told you
to do? Remind yourself of that (and correct things if you’re just going off on
your own!). Are you being obedient to his Word? Are you being obedient to His
calling? For me, this pray may look something like “God, you’re the one who
called me into CEF, this marriage, or this home…”. Or “you’re the one who told
me to love my enemies” Or “You’re the One who told me to tell the truth even
when it’s hard”… It’s an opportunity to remind yourself of WHY you’re in this
situation: because you’re serving God who wants you to be where you are right
now, for whatever reason He has.
The other part of checking back in with God should be a
gratitude for what He HAS done: Jacob recognized that God had blessed him
greatly, and all undeservedly. Seriously, what part of God’s astronomical
blessings do we actually deserve? Stop and remember how he’s taken care of you
so far. Thank Him for those!
In verse 11, he finally makes a specific request: “Please
deliver me from the hand of my brother…” Notice how vulnerable he is. He admits
to God that he is afraid of his brother. It’s okay to start out with the wrong
attitude (fear), but it’s not okay to stay there. He calls it what it is. “God,
I fear him.” What? He wasn’t already fearless and living in perfect faith? How
do we get to the point where we can have faith as our first response? It’s a
process. And it seems to me that sometimes we have to verbalize what our
attitudes are so we can face them head on. I don’t know about you, but my
tendency is to “stuff” things when I start to get overwhelmed. Last night I
couldn’t sleep because I had so many little things running around in my head,
so I got up and wrote in my journal for a bit. I “blurted out” everything that
I was frustrated about or trying to remember, then looked at it. By verbalizing
it, I was able to see how foolish I was to worry about the stuff I was worried
about, and ready to start to fix it. Until then, I was just losing sleep, getting
increasingly frustrated, and generally spiraling. And, at least for me,
personally, that doesn’t stop by praying silently: my brain gets distracted
mid-thought with yet another worry. So if writing’s your game, write it down.
If you need to talk things through, find some place you can talk to God out
loud (maybe the library isn’t the place for you!). If singing to Him is an easy
way to articulate your thoughts, then go for it! Face your fear. Give it words
so you can realize what you’re dealing with. The trick, though, is to not just
leave it at the “verbalized” stage. Look for what GOD’S answer is to your fear
or other issue. Not your friend’s answer, not what your whiney self would
answer, not the self-help book’s answer, but GOD’S answer.
Notice what Jacob’s NEXT sentence was! “BUT YOU SAID…” This
is gold, People! The answer to his fear was to remind himself of God’s promise.
“I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea,
which cannot be numbered for multitude”. He couldn’t have known how God would
keep his promise, but he figured it would be nigh unto impossible for God to
keep that promise while letting him and his family get wiped out by a vengeful
brother, Esau. And that was the end of his prayer. His heart seemed to be
settled. After all that tizzy, it was settled in that single sentence that
started with “But you said”. We don’t all get the liberty of a personalized
promise from God Incarnate to hang on to, but we sure have a lot of God’s
promises to go back to. When dealing with fear, my first recollection is that
“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound
mind” (1 Timothy 2). But whatever your situation, God has promises. Keep
digging til you find one. Remember, there are also promises that we’ll have
trouble, so the promise you may cling to may be that “He has overcome the
world”. But remind yourself of it. And let that settle it. When your brain
fights back and says “but He COULDN’T have known about how bad THIS problem
would be”, remind yourself of the promise yet again. And when your emotions
battle it, and remind you of how sorry you are for yourself, and how terrible
this situation is, remind yourself again of the promise. And when others DO
feel sorry for you, and empathize, justifying your fear, and you want to go
back to wallow in it a bit longer, remind yourself of the promise! Often, it
won’t be an instant change – it’ll even be a battlefield to keep trusting God.
But it’s worth it.
By the time Jacob brought his gifts to Esau the next day,
they met as brothers and friends. I don’t think that Jacob had freaked out in
vain – it seems to have been a dangerous situation. But had God kept his
promise? Of course. One way or another God would have, anyway. But Jacob had
been comforted by His promise and had “stayed there that night”, rather than
flee in terror, deceive his brother again, or whatever other concoction his
panicked human brain might have come up with to deal with this situation.
Trust God. Pray His promises back to him – not to change
Him, but to gain that peace that passes understanding. Even as a kid, I knew
that my Daddy, in his humanity, could change his mind, or even (gasp!) break
his promise. My God? Not a chance.
