June 22 – Genesis 32:13-32

June 22 – Genesis 32:13-32

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Oh, Heavenly Father, why do we have to learn the hard way? Why don’t we listen when You try to show us the best way? Why can’t I remember that You only want to care for me and take care of me. When You give me rules, they are for my best. When You give me discipline it is for me to learn. Help me Father to always remember who You are and that everything You do, You do out of love. I forget so often that You are the epitome of love and everything You do comes from a place of love. Why do we see Your discipline as wrath or judgment, when it is truly out of love? Help me to keep in mind the great love You have, even when it is easier to see You as punishing, rather than loving. Help me be a light to share that love. There is enough hate, disease, wrath and anger in the world. Help me spread Your love, light, and the freedom You can bring the world if they will just accept You. Help me not get caught up in the anger of this world. It is so easy to do. We even saw Jacob and Laban treat each other poorly, through these verses today. Help me look for the good in people and be blinded from seeing things that would cause me to fall down in the ditches with the rest of the world. It’s much easier to fall in the pit than pull people out of the pit, but with Your help, Father, we can do anything. Thank You for Your love and power, and for claiming me as Your own!

In Jesus name.

Amen!

How we wrestle with so many things that God doesn’t intend for us to wrestle with. Here Jacob’s concern for uniting with his brother Esau is touching. He knew he had tricked Esau and taken advantage.

Why do you think he wanted to make it up to him to such a degree?

Was it fear of his brother’s wrath?

Fear of God’s wrath?

Realizing what Laban did to him was similar to what he had done to Esau?

What has God taught you that he had to teach you the hard way like he did Jacob by using Laban’s cheating ways?

Genesis 32:13-32

13 So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau,14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,15 thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.16 These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, "Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove."17 He instructed the first, "When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, 'To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?'18 then you shall say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.'"19 He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, "You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him,20 and you shall say, 'Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.'" For he thought, "I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me."21 So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.26 Then he said, "Let me go, for the day has broken." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."27 And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."28 Then he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed."29 Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered."31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.32 Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.