Gensis chapter 31

Trust again is the theme here, although I wonder just how much Jacob would have actually trusted God is things weren't getting difficult with Laban. Maybe it is me just being cynical here, but Jacob and Laban were both schemers, always trying to outwit the other, and if everything had been good between them, I just wonder whether Jacob would have upped and left as he did.
Of course, it is easy to sit here and be cynical about someone's motives, to make a judgment based on a few words as, after all, isn't that what we do a lot of the time anyway, judge people base don what they are wearing, what someone has told us, the impression we get? Here I am, questioning Jacob and his obedience to God, his motives, his reasonings, when chances are, he did listen, and he did obey and would have done exactly the same no matter what the situation between him and Laban.

We were hearing in church on Sunday about one man, a successful dairy farmer from a long line of dairy farmers, a dairy farmer who was loud, strong, and a hard worker who had a bit of a reputation in the area. He became a Christian and so did his wife, and one day, he had a prophetic word spoken over him that he was to give up ding what he loved as God has a job for him. So he sold his farm, his hers, his land and waited on God…and waited….and waited…. For three years, three years when the money ran out, he and his wife struggled to make ends meet, they became the laughing stock for having sold such a good farm and all the land and cattle. Instead of being given respect when he walked down the street, people looked at him and thought he was a fool, an idiot. Yet one night, God told him to walk down the main street of the nearest town - it was a one street town and very rough, full of bars and so on. So he did, and he saw the youth, hanging around, getting drunk, using drugs, and so on. He went back home and asked God why he'd had to do that, as he'd seen people no better off then he was (they were considering trying to restart farming at this point, things had got so bad) and God told him that he couldn't be used before now, because he didn't know what it was like to want, to need, and now, he could be used, and he was to go and start a youth ministry.

So he did just that - he asked his church (which was in a very nice area in a really nice town) for the money to rent a building in that rough town (which they gave because they knew him and trusted him) and things took off. The youth started to come to the building, and pretty soon, things were turned around, the local council came and asked him to mentor their youth workers at a very large salary (solving his financial problems!) and then a businessman came from out of the blue asking if he could donate $250,000 for use in the ministry work to be used as he saw fit. The youth in that town are coming to Christ, their lives are being turned around and great things are happening in the area.

All this because one man trusted in God.

And I have learned over the years that God can be trusted too. I may not have the experiences that man had, I may not hear God's voice telling me to go and do this, that or the other, but I get the nudges, the prompts, and every so often, I hear God speaking to me, reassuring me, comforting me. I trust in Him because I know He can be trusted, that when He says He will do something, He does it. I know He answers all my prayers, not necessarily the way I want, I have to say, but I know whatever God does for me, is for me best, because He has a plan for me, a plan for my good not for my harm, and He is with me no matter what I am doing, even though at times, I feel so very alone. Just as He was with Jacob all those years ago, even when Jacob was plotting and scheming, trying to outwit Laban.

So trust in God is a part of what and who I am, just as it became a part of Jacob, and Abraham, and all those others mentioned in Hebrews. Is it part of you?