Litwithprayer Podcast

The Promise: Genesis 28:10-32

September 14, 2022 Litwithprayer Podcast
Litwithprayer Podcast
The Promise: Genesis 28:10-32
Show Notes

The Bible is such a wonderful book full of life’s lessons, wisdom, and God’s promises to His children. The Old Testament is full of stories that actually pertain to character development and God’s patience towards His children. Last week we went over the story of Jacob, the trickster, who gets tricked into marrying the sister of his true love. He was promised Rachel, the younger sister who was beautiful, but woke up in the morning with Leah, the older sister. By morning Jacob was sober and could see that his new wife was Leah and not Rachel. As Jacob had tricked his father Isaac who could not see clearly, Jacob was now suffering from his own blindness on his wedding night.  

Both Jacob and his father in law Laban have character flaws and use deceit to accomplish their goals. Jacob who bought Esau’s birthright for a pot of stew and tricked his father into giving him the first born  blessing has now been tricked and has to work an additional 7 years  to pay for his wife Rachel. Why would God choose Jacob?

God had made a promise to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham and that promise was passed down to his father Isaac and then was passed to Jacob. The promise included a multitude of descendants, the promised land, and through his blood line all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Jesus the Messiah).

One night as Jacob was escaping from Esau after stealing the blessing from his father, he camped out and had a dream. In this dream there was a ladder from the ground to heaven and angels were going up and down the ladder. Then God who was above said to Jacob that He was the God/Lord of Abraham and Isaac and He would bless him with the promises given to Abraham. He also said that He would be with him and keep him and bring him back to his homeland.

Jacob woke up and made a vow to God saying that if the Lord would be with him, keep him and provide bread to eat and clothing to wear and bring him back to his father’s house in peace then the Lord would be his God and he would give a tenth of all that God would give him. Later, Jacob would spend twenty years working for his uncle and father in law Laban. Fourteen years for his true love Rachel and the next six to build his wealth and provide for his family.

God honors His promises and next week we will see how God provides financial blessings on Jacob in a very unusual way.  The point is that God keeps His Word and we as His children should remind ourselves that sometimes God’s promises may take longer to manifest than we expect. God is more interested in changing our character first than changing our circumstances.  

Read the rest at https://litwithprayer.substack.com/p/the-promise?sd=pf