Have We Done This?

I was reading a well known Bible story in the Old Testament  this morning and some of the details hit me afresh, even though I thought I knew the story well. Jacob had deceived both his father and brother and had run away from home to save his life. His brother in particular, was very angry with him and swore to kill him if he ever got his hands on him!

Jacob went to his father’s relatives many hundreds of miles away, and fell in love with one of his cousins who was a very pretty girl. But Jacob found that the deceitful genes were just as much alive in his relatives there, and that his uncle  tricked him more than once over the years. He had given him the wrong girl for a start, and then changed his wages seven times over. Jacob ended up with both his girl cousins for wives (acceptable in that culture then), and at the time this incident happened, he had eleven sons.

His flocks and herds had increased to such an extent that his men cousins were starting to mutter about this fact. At the same time, God spoke to Jacob in a dream, telling him to return to his father’s house. It was time for him to put things right with his brother. Jacob prepared to do this, and gathered all his belongings and flocks and herds together  and left without telling his uncle he was leaving, sneaking away one night while he  was busy elsewhere.

When his uncle heard of this,  he started off in pursuit of Jacob’s party, but God intervened one night in a dream and told him he was not to touch Jacob or to accuse him of anything. When he caught up with Jacob, he asked him why had had done this , leaving in such a hurry that he couldn’t say goodbye to his daughters and grandchildren.     ” I thought you wouldn’t let them go,” Jacob replied, “Besides I’ve worked for you for twenty years and you changed my wages many times! I’ve looked after your animals and made good any that were taken by wild animals.”

Jacob’s uncle knew this was true, and he was somewhat pacified. “Well, let’s make an agreement that we will leave each other alone after this,” he said. So they put together a heap of stones and made an agreement with each other, eating a feast at the spot which sealed the  pact.

The time had come for Jacob to meet his brother Esau. It was an  easy  meeting, and they made up between them. Then this was the part of the story that made an impression on me.  After  Esau left and Jacob  had sent his wives and children off ahead of him,  God appeared to him as a stranger passing by and began to wrestle with him. Jacob was a tough outdoors person by this time, and neither of the contestants was beating the other, until suddenly the stranger touched Jacob’s thigh. Jacob began to limp with the pain and let him go suddenly.

The Stranger said, “What is your name?”                                                                “My name is Jacob,” he said. Suddenly it hit him what  his name Jacob meant. Supplanter, Deciever, everything that he had been in all his sinfulness up until this point. As he realised this and saw himself as he was, the Stranger said, “Your name from now on will be Israel, a Prince with God!” What a change happened within Jacob’s being as this was said. “What is Your  Name, then?” he asked.                   “Why do you ask?” the Stranger said, and gave him God’s blessing on the spot.  Again, the realisation hit Jacob, and he cried out, “This place shall be called Peniel, because I have seen God face to face, and I’m still alive!”

Jacob was never the same again, either in his spirit or in his body as he limped for the rest of his life, a perpetual reminder of his encounter with the God of his father and grandfather.

This story reminded me of the same principles that govern our lives today. We must each one have a personal encounter with God; we must realise the sin we are in, and how crooked and deceitful we  are naturally. We must confess our sin before God can forgive us and make us anew. We CAN become new creatures in Christ, and this is the only way we can rise above our sinful natures that abuse each other and cause untold misery in our lives today.

The blessings that God gives each one who does this are unspeakable,  and we are given a new name as well as a new nature. It is only as God touches our lives, even if this causes pain in some way, that this can happen. Let’s pray and look to God for this to happen.

(You can read this story about Jacob in Genesis 29-32)

 

“I Wish I hadn’t Done It!”

The old lady and her daughter sat in my study looking a little uncertain.
“What can you tell me about my mother’s family?” the older lady asked, “I know a bit but not back to my grandparents or where they came from”.
It seemed a strange request, but as it happened, I had done quite a bit of research on the background of this family as we shared a common ancestor, and I had written a book on the early beginnings of this district in northern New Zealand. We’ll call this lady Ellie for the sake of this story, and her mother Essie.
Essie was one of a large family, and as a young teenage girl, she had taken the job of assistant cook in a logging gang, working among men of different nationalities that made up this gang. Even though she was in the same district that she had grown up, she was still some miles away from her parent’s home, and away from their influence and care.
One of the older married men in the gang took it on himself to show a bit of protection for Essie and because he was kinder than the younger men she tended to seek him out for company in her spare time. After a few months, Essie started to feel ill every morning, and then it dawned on her that she might be pregnant. Whatever would she do?
She knew her parents would be no comfort to her, as it was considered a terrible disgrace in the early days of the twentieth century to be an unmarried mother. But she had no option, she had to tell them and endure their wrath and whatever solution they might suggest.
She was sent away to the anonymity of the big city to stay in a home especially for girls in her situation, and when her baby, a little girl, arrived she knew she had to give her up for adoption. But all was not entirely lost. The man who had befriended her, knew her predicament, and found out where she was staying. He had a solution he said. He was convinced the child was his, and since he and his wife had no family, they were prepared to take the baby and legally adopt her and bring her up. He had talked it over with his wife, he said, and she was happy to do this….she said the baby was half theirs anyway!
So Ellie was adopted by this couple and brought up as their own child. Living as they did in a small country district where everyone knew everyone else, it was inevitable that the other children at school knew that she was different. Ellie wasn’t even sure what being adopted meant, all she knew was that it meant she was different to the other children, and she had to endure many taunts in the playground because of it.
Ellie grew up and left the district to get work in the same city she had been born in, and met and married her husband. They eventually had five daughters and one son, and as a young mother, she missed her real mother so much that she made up her mind to find her. She eventually tracked Essie down. She too, had married and had other children, but had never told any of them about her “disgraceful” youth. Neither her husband, nor her other children knew of the existence of Ellie.
So when she knocked on their door and Essie opened it, Ellie told her who she was, and that Essie was her birth mother. Essie was so horrified at the ramifications of this spectre from the past, that she slammed the door shut in Ellie’s face, and refused to acknowledge her. All Ellie’s dreams of a tender reunion with her real mother dissolved in a moment, and the realisation that she was nothing more than an unwelcome embarrassment to her, overcame her as she stumbled away down the path and back to her home. She felt that life indeed had dealt her a raw deal, and the seeds of bitterness and resentment grew and festered in her mind.
Many years passed by, and Ellie’s daughters grew up and married themselves. Her youngest daughter married and went off to the States to live, and her brother followed her over there and never came back to New Zealand. Ellie felt as though they had deserted her, and it was just one more nail in her coffin of resentment.
Her eldest daughter married and moved right away from the city, and then one of the other two girls was diagnosed as having cancer. She didn’t survive this, and once more Ellie felt bereft. Then to her horror, she heard that her eldest daughter who lived many miles away up north, had also been diagnosed with cancer. So Ellie lost this daughter also, and although the baby survived and was brought up by his father and new wife, Ellie never saw anything of him. She thought sadly of how he was her last link with her eldest daughter.
More years passed by. One day there was a knock at Ellie’s door. She opened it to see an old lady standing there (it was Essie).
“I’ve come to see you before I die” she quavered.
Ellie was so angry…who did she think she was after the way she had treated me? she thought. It gave her great pleasure to slam the door in her mother’s face, and watch her go down the path.
She heard a short while later that her mother had died, and there was never any reconciliation between them.
Now here Ellie was, sitting before me, wanting to know more about her real family. I had seen her periodically coming to the ladies outreach meetings at our church. She had always looked so sad and miserable. Although there were many times when the topic of God’s love and forgiveness were spoken of, she never approached anyone to ask how this might help her even though the invitation to do so was frequently given.
As she told her sad story, it impressed itself on me what a difference it would have made to her if she had only done this! As far as I knew, she never did forgive her mother, and died still in her sadness and regrets of what might have been.
I include this story here as a warning of what bitterness and resentment can do to a person when it is not dealt with promptly. It is only natural to feel these things in the face of disappointments and hurts, but we must never let it stay and fester. The Bible tells us that these things have roots, and if we leave them, they will overcome us…we are to get rid of them before they grow…
Watch carefully in case any person fails to show the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springs up and troubles you. (Hebrews 12:15)

The Unexpected!

We have had two unexpected deaths in the last couple of weeks in our church congregation… one was a lady in her early eighties, but a very alert and fit lady who led a Bible study and was full of life….she suffered an aneurism and was gone in a matter of hours. The other one was equally unexpected where this lady’s neighbour heard the dog barking all night without letting up. She went over to this lady’s house in the morning and found the backdoor hadn’t been locked the night before, and there she was lying on the floor, gone.
Neither of these ladies knew that last day, that it would indeed be their last. It was a great shock to all who knew them, and is a real wake-up call to us all, to make sure that we are ready for this, the last call. When these ladies woke up that last day, they had no idea of what lay ahead.
The first one had even been to a Keep-fit class that morning. These incidents show us how uncertain life is. We aren’t promised tomorrow. We aren’t even promised the end of the current day. The only moment we have is NOW.
The only certain thing about life is that it is going to end one day. Whenever there is a birth, there will be a death. But no-one knows when.
There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Teach me to number my days (consider my mortality); so that I may live wisely” (Psalm 90:12)
Let’s make sure that we consider these things and be ready to meet our Maker, no matter how suddenly or unexpectedly it may happen.

Advice to a Son

 PROVERBS  TWO…. (v.1-6)          

Solomon is begging his son here  to listen and take notice. A person with a bit of age and experience behind him, can see the pitfalls that a headstrong youngster can never see.

“Listen to me”, Solomon says, “Seek and apply yourselves,  ask  and seek earnestly for wisdom!”  I wonder how often we do this?

God has all these blessings in Christ Jesus waiting for us, but we must put effort into getting them. James tells us that we don’t have the enjoyment of them because we don’t  ask for them or apply ourselves to getting them  (James 4:2c). It is like a student once who needed finance to get through her course and asked the Lord to provide it. He did, but not in the way she expected it…. God provided a job for her to earn her own money! He didn’t just get someone else to send her a cheque!!

Those who earnestly and prayerfully seek, WILL find…..this is one of the prayers that God has unconditionally promised He will grant!

Seek wisdom from the Lord above,                                                                                Who gives all things richly in love;                                                                                 But we must search and seek this for,                                                                               It to be giv’n from God’s rich store.