Scripture is clear that the Lord leads his people into difficult circumstances to grow our faith in him. Do you remember a past faith-refining season in your own life? This Sunday's passage is a particularly bizarre and painful expression of that. We'll observe both the Lord's kind providence and his refining discipline in Jacob's life and apply it to our own lives.
Our passage this week finds Jacob in the consequences of his sin: alone, running for his life, and with an uncertain future. Perhaps you can relate to some or all these feelings in your own life. Yet it is in this dark, lonely place where God graciously meets Jacob--and delights to meet us--with his amazing grace.
Favoritism. Greed. Deception. Despair. Our passage is full of ugliness—all within one family, and the family of promise no less! God's blessing perseveres even in the midst of this mess, and our messes, too. This Sunday, Genesis 27 offers us a strong warning against sin and a consolation of God's undeterred plan of blessing for his people.
