January 9, 2024 - Genesis 26-28

There was the shameful selling of Esau’s birthright, though that worked out according to God’s purposes, the story of Isaac and Abimelech and the sorry passing off of Rebekah as Isaac’s sister, Esau’s terrible marriage with a Hittite woman, and the deceit of Jacob.  Seemingly, one problem after another.  Can God’s promise of a redeemer through the line of Abraham possibly ever be fulfilled?  I mean, this bunch just seems to go from one terrible decision to another, facing one consequence after another of their decisions.  But God will not be thwarted!

“Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran” (28:11), and there he dreamed.  In the dream, God said to Jacob, “"I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac” (28:13).  So many times in the Old Testament does God declare, “I am the Lord!”  As Lord and God, he identifies himself, tells what he will do and, then, he acts.  Here he promises (faithful to the promises given to Abraham) to give to Isaac’s descendants a land in which to live, to multiply their numbers, to bless the nations through him, and to be with him and to keep him.  In those moments when all seems to be going wrong, when we find ourselves doubting, when we struggle to know where to turn, the wise person turns to the faithful one who said to Isaac, “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (28:15).  Resting in him, we sing:

Perfect submission, all is at rest.

I in my Savior am happy and bless’d,

watching and waiting, looking above,

filled with his goodness, lost in his love.

This is my story, this is my song,

praising my Savior all the day long.

This is my story, this is my song,

praising my Savior all the day long.   –Fanny Crosby (1873)