Genesis chapter 30

The competition between Leah and Rachel, when Jacob becomes a pawn, a trophy between the two of them.  I know it was the tradition on those days to have your husband sleep with your servant and then any child would be deemed to be yours, but I really wouldn't want my husband sleeping with any other woman, no matter who she was.  Yet here are Leah and Rachel, trading Jacob between them and using their servants to get more children. 

It is a case of not having the patience to wait on God, to trust Him to provide. Easier said than done, I now, as I sit here criticising.  There are many times when I take matters into my own hands, to do what I think God wants me to without waiting to hear from him.  Sometimes, it is better to just sit and wait on God, to spend time quietly in prayer rather than rush into doing something that may well be the right thing, but it might not necessarily be at the right time.  I struggle to do this, as I know I have a habit of wanting to be busy, to be doing something, and I have trouble just sitting doing nothing.  So this is a real lesson to me to have patience, to wait on God and not to rush in and do what I think is best.  After all, God knows the big picture, He can see yesterday, today and tomorrow and He knows the right time and the right action to take.

Then there is the trickery and scheming between Jacob and Laban.  Jacob has had enough and wants out, so he proposes that he leave and take all the speckled or spotted sheep and goats and every dark coloured lamb with only the pure white sheep and goats being Laban's.  So Laban removes all the speckled and spotted billy goats, nanny goats and sheep, and any dark lamb, moves them three days walk form Jacob and has his sons tend them.  Out of sight, out of mind, leaving the sheep and goats that Jacob has agreed are his on the flocks Jacob is caring for.  But Jacob is a trickster too, and he ensures that all the offspring of the remaining sheep and goats are speckled and posted by placing branches of poplar, almond and plane trees with the bark stripped off near the drinking water for the sheep and goats.  He also placed these in front of where the sturdier animals mated (but not the weaker animals), and as a result of all this, the young were speckled and spotted, and the feebler animals were not, so Laban had those.  Jacob ended up becoming richer and richer as a result.

Again, this is a case of taking matters into your own hands to achieve the desired result rather than waiting on God.  However, since it really is an old wives' tale with the stripped bark affecting the markings on the offspring, All Jacob's scheming came to nought, and the only reason he was successful was to due the grace and blessing of God.

How often do we do things ourselves which turn out successful only because God has had a hand in it, and not because of anything we do?  Do we ever stop to consider God's will for our lives, for this moment, for this task or do we always do what we think best and forget to ask God?  I now I do this all to often.  I get in a mess and try to sort it out myself, I am snowed under with work, and priorities it myself, I need to de things and make the best I can of it, yet God hardly ever factors into my thinking.    I know things often work out, but really, that is God at work behind the scenes rather than anything I have done.  I can only do the things I do because of how God has gifted me, yet how often do I stop to give the thanks and the praise, to seek His guidance?  

I know it is not a case of asking God about every little thing, even though He is interested in every aspect of our lives, because after all He gave each of us a mind and expects us to use it.  But what about the big stuff?  The problems?  The worries?  Or even the thanks for the good things that happen?  All too often like Jacob we just muddle along, doing what we can to earn a living and God never enters the equation yet He blesses us anyway.  How amazing and awesome is the love and care He lavishes on us often completely undeserved.