Genesis chapter 31

Trust again is the theme here, although I wonder just how much Jacob would have actually trusted God if 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 based on 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.

But it is not just Jacob who has to trust in God at this stage in his life, it is also Leah and Rachel who are being asked to trust too.  They are having to leave the only home they have never known to travel to a distant land, to meet relatives they have only heard of, and it will be all strange and new.  So much so, in fact, that Rachel decides to take Laban's household gods, idols he worships, along with her.  Se doesn't know God as Jacob does.  Maybe she thinks Jacob is imagining things when he hears God talk to him, maybe she just wants to hedge her bets.   After all, a little extra insurance on the spiritual side of things can only be a good thing, right?  She is off to a strange land and wants to take something familiar with her, something she is used to having around, a comfort from home.

Mind you, there was apparently a custom in those days that the person who possessed the household gods was the heir, so there may well have been a completely different motive for Rachel taking the idols.

We all do things like that.  There are things, people, places in our lives that we are fond of, that we are used to and do not want to do without.  Sometimes these take the place of God in our lives, they push everything else behind them as we allow them to take priority in our lives. Like, for instance, when I just have to check my emails before I start reading my bible in a morning and before I know it, it is time to make my son's breakfast, take him to school and then start work….and where is my bible reading in all this, my spending a quiet time with God?  I allow the things of this world to push god to second, third or an even lower place in my life.

Yet I have learned over the years that God can be trusted, even when I allow the things of this world to take priority.  I may not have the experiences that Jacob and others have 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.   I know I don't always trust in God as fully as I should when I try to sort things out for myself on many an occasion but I do know that He is always there, always by my side, watching over me, guiding me, leading me, if I only but stopped to listen and hear His voice.  I know that no matter what happens,  God is faithful.

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?