Hosanna Restoration Church

Little did Jacob know when he headed out to find a wife that it is was going to be the way it was. Even though he had managed to steal his brothers birthright and blessing, he at least was obedient to Isaac when he told him not marry a Canaanite woman but to go to the house of his grandfather instead. As he went, he went with another great blessing from his father. He also was blessed with a visit from God as he went along in obedience to his father’s directions. God honors obedience and faithfulness in life. We must remember that! With all those promises of blessings he must have felt that nothing could go wrong.

Then he when he arrives at his destination and Rachel appears he knows for sure that life is perfect. We all love it when everything is going perfectly according to plan. We know for sure that God is with us. Jacob works for seven years just to have Rachel for his wife and they go by so fast it is like no time at all. Then comes the wedding night and his father-in-law pulls the sneaky switch on him. I have never understood that either. I can only figure Jacob must have had a whole bunch too much wine. So he wakes up and finds himself in a mess. Oh how we hate messes, even if we make them ourselves. Suddenly it seems that God must have missed our prayers somewhere.

Well Jacob doesn’t necessarily act as though he thinks God has deserted him. He stays right where he is and goes to work for the woman he wanted in the first place; seven more years of work, but talk about a messy situation. I mean can you imagine the home life when you are married to two sisters and the first one knows she was not wanted in the first place. I know, I don’t understand all the wives or the concubine thing either, but I can easily imagine that the atmosphere was not always pleasant. Yet even in this mess, Jacob was being blessed. He expected to be blessed because God said He was going to bless him. We recently talked about digging a well, because we know God is for us. How about looking for and expecting God to bless us even when things look like a mess.

Throughout all this time, God blessed Jacob. He blessed everything he did with the flocks. He blessed him so much that even when his uncle ripped him off, Jacob still continued to prosper and his blessings overflowed so that his uncle was being blessed as well. He was also having lots of children and he was obviously blessed in the fact that he did not lose his mind over all the deals that were being made between his wives and concubines. I mean talk about a messy situation. Add to that the fact that Laban’s sons were stirring up trouble and you wonder how Jacob held it together. Well we know how he held it together. He held on to the promises that God had made to him. If that were not the case he would have run out of that place long before that.

Because he stayed where God wanted him, God was faithful to make the arrangements for him to move on. And we know that when he moved on, he left with great blessings and a large family and many servants. Now if God can do that in the midst of Jacob’s mess, tell me what mess that we have could possibly keep God from doing what He has promised us in His word? So if you feel like things are mess, look to God and expect Him to bless. You will find out that He never stopped even when you thought He had.