There above it stood the Lord, and he said [to Jacob]: “I am the Lord,
the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your
descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the
dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the
north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be a blessed through you and
your offspring.” (Genesis 28:13-14)
Did you catch it? Did you notice who God declared Himself to be, and
who He did not claim to be? God introduced Himself to Jacob as the God of his
father, Isaac, and his grandfather, Abraham. But Jacob? Even as God swore to
him the same covenantal terms He promised to his forefathers—a land,
descendants, and a blessing—He would not identify Himself as Jacob’s God,
because He was not. Not yet, anyway. And they both knew it.
Some of us have to take the long way to our destination, don’t we? Though God calls us to Himself along the express lanes of faith, some of us “know a shortcut”; we exit onto the long, teeth-rattling dirt roads of self-will, which never turn out to be as spectacular as the trip planner in our imaginations promised.
All his life, Jacob had taken the “schemic” route of deception and manipulation.1 So in both sovereignty and tough love, God diverted his path to the doorstep of his father-in-law, Laban, who was every bit the schemer that Jacob was. Each had met his match, and for the next 20 years, these two Titans of Trickery battled it out, each deceiving the other until both wore down in fatigue. Only then did God become Jacob’s God.
God longs for us simply to trust Him, and He is delighted when we do, for “love always trusts” (1 Corinthians 13:7). But He allows us to travel our twisted and torturous trail—be it the footpath of fear, the railway of rebellion, or the avenue of arrogance—if that’s what it takes for us to exhaust ourselves and turn to Him in faith. For He desires to be our God and for us to be called by His name. So, in sovereignty, He turns our decisions into life lessons on the futility of our ways and the beauty of His. And He waits for us. Patiently, He waits.
[Read the story of Jacob's dream at Bethel in Genesis 28:10-17.]
1 The name Jacob means “to supplant” or “to deceive.”
Some of us have to take the long way to our destination, don’t we? Though God calls us to Himself along the express lanes of faith, some of us “know a shortcut”; we exit onto the long, teeth-rattling dirt roads of self-will, which never turn out to be as spectacular as the trip planner in our imaginations promised.
All his life, Jacob had taken the “schemic” route of deception and manipulation.1 So in both sovereignty and tough love, God diverted his path to the doorstep of his father-in-law, Laban, who was every bit the schemer that Jacob was. Each had met his match, and for the next 20 years, these two Titans of Trickery battled it out, each deceiving the other until both wore down in fatigue. Only then did God become Jacob’s God.
God longs for us simply to trust Him, and He is delighted when we do, for “love always trusts” (1 Corinthians 13:7). But He allows us to travel our twisted and torturous trail—be it the footpath of fear, the railway of rebellion, or the avenue of arrogance—if that’s what it takes for us to exhaust ourselves and turn to Him in faith. For He desires to be our God and for us to be called by His name. So, in sovereignty, He turns our decisions into life lessons on the futility of our ways and the beauty of His. And He waits for us. Patiently, He waits.
[Read the story of Jacob's dream at Bethel in Genesis 28:10-17.]
1 The name Jacob means “to supplant” or “to deceive.”
