Trust God's Plan

 Read Genesis 29

Last time we talked about the vision that Jacob had while sleeping on a rock and renaming that place Bethel.  Jacob had an epiphany and it was that he was a part of God’s plan—this whole Father of Many Nations business would go through him and his offspring, of which he had none at the moment.

I’m sure his father had told him of his grandfather and the promise of being the Father of Many Nations, but now this was very real to him.  God’s plan for his life was taking hold of him.

Jacob continued his journey and arrived at the lands of his eastern relatives.  Like the servant who traveled to find his father a wife, he arrived at a well.  This was the place to be. This was where the herds of sheep would soon be watered.

Jacob talked with the men waiting to roll the stone away from the well and water their sheep and he confirmed that he was in the right place and that his uncle Laban was doing well. As Jacob was speaking with the men at the well, Rachel, Laban’s younger daughter approached.  She was beautiful.

She was also a shepherd and brought her father’s sheep to be watered.  Jacob, being a little less than subtle, rolled the stone away from the well so her sheep could be watered, and then walked up to Rachel and laid a kiss on her.

He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.

As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.”

Things were off to a good start.  Jacob’s thoughts of being murdered by his brother had surely given way to thoughts of love.  He was in love with Rachel.

He had stayed with his uncle for about a month and Laban said that Jacob shouldn’t be working for nothing.  He should name his wage.

When you don’t show up with a caravan of camels loaded with treasure and want a wife, what do you do? Jacob said that he would work for 7 years in exchange for receiving Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel, as his wife.

Laban thought, she could do worse and agreed.

The 7 years seemed short as Jacob was in love with Rachel.  Finally, the time came for the wedding and guests were summoned.

There was a feast and that probably meant some wine, but finally evening came and it was time to be with his new bride.  Laban brought Leah to Jacob and they made love.

When Jacob awakened, he discovered that he had been with Leah, the older daughter. He confronted Laban.  What’s up with that!  That wasn’t our deal.

Laban explained that in these parts, the older daughter must be married first.  What’s done is done.

The deceiver had been deceived, but this was still part of God’s plan.  The offspring from the line of the Father of Many Nations was going to increase rapidly and the community of peoples, which would be manifest in tribes, was happening.

Jacob probably did not realize this at the time, but the family tree was about to branch out.

Jacob was still in love with Rachel.

Laban said that if Jacob finished the bridal week, he would give Rachel to Jacob in exchange for another 7 years of service. Done deal!  You want to see the original spin on sister wives, well, here we go.

Jacob obviously loved Rachel more than Leah, so God leveled the playing field.  Leah conceived 4 times but Rachel could not.

The 4 sons by Leah were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. That’s pretty much where we wrap up this chapter.  There will be more kids from more women in the next chapter, and not just from the 2 sisters.

But what do we take from this week’s reading?

How about, making sure you have the right woman before you jump in the sack with her.  That’s an enduring lesson.

How about, if you are not running for your life because your brother wants to kill you, maybe Dad will give you enough for a dowery and you won’t have to work to get a wife.  That doesn’t apply much these days.  I can’t tell you how many guys—I’m not going to say men—that I deal with who have no job, no car, and no prospects for income but have shacked up with a woman as the financial support for the household.

I hope we haven’t seen the end of the days when the man provided for the wife and family, but in 2023, it’s not looking too good.

But surely that’s not all we can take out of this chapter, is it?

This is going to sound familiar.  It should.  God is very consistent in his ways and his ways must become our ways if we want to know abundant life. This whole, he will direct our paths business is for real.  We just have to trust that he has given us the best path for our lives.

I have shared this story a few times over the years.  In 1974, while a senior at Mangum High School, I was at the Burns Flat Relays.  The team needed a 4^th for the mile relay.  I always threw the discus, but there was no discus event at the relays and the guys knew I could run a quarter mile in under a minute, so there I was.

I waited and waited for the event.  I was bored.  I looked all around me and said, “Nobody would live here on purpose.”  As far as I was concerned this was a penal colony in the Outback, or the Gulag.  Who would live here, really?

In the early 90’s after coming back from Iraq, we packed up the family in South Carolina and headed to Camp Pendleton, California.  Along the way, we stopped in Burns Flat, America.  I looked around and thought, we could buy a house for what I just paid for our new car, and we did.

In 1999, I retired from the Marine Corps and we moved to Burns Flat.  Nowhere in my plan for my life was the metropolis of Burns Flat even a speck on the map and yet here we are.  Even if I knew back then that Burns Flat would have all 3 colors on its traffic light and a Dollar General and a Dollar Tree, would I have put this place on my life map.

As humans, we still think in terms of Point A to Point B in terms of a straight line.  We think that this thing—whatever it is—is our goal and it is a straight line from where we are to where we want to be.

God’s A and B might not look straight to us.  In fact, his directions might seem a bit confusing. They might seem very confusing. Sometimes, we might think, what is God thinking?

Really God, Burns Flat?

It seems like he might have given us a couple wrong turns, missed an exit, turned off the GPS, routed us through a wormhole, and made a left-hand turn from the right-hand lane.

This whole business of the Father of Many Nations and Abrahams's sons and grandsons makes you wonder about God’s plan.

But instead of wondering about the sanity of God’s plans, we should be in wonder at the mighty works of our sovereign God.  He is sovereign and he has good plans for us and if those plans don’t line up with our map, it’s time to get a new map.

Perhaps we need to pay less attention to the map and more to the divine compass we have been given.  I’m not going to expand that metaphor or analogy, but we need to trust God’s direction for our lives.

That doesn’t mean go out and do stupid stuff, but even if we do, God will take even our mistakes and use them for good for we love him and are called according to his purpose.

God has good plans for you.  Enjoy the ride from here through Joseph as we navigate Genesis, because there is some stuff coming that our finite human minds might say, no way God’s plan included that, but it did and it does.

One day, perhaps on this earth, perhaps in the heavenly realms, we should expect an aha moment or two, or three, or three million for what we do not understand now will make perfect sense to us.

We think the best plan is the one along the path of least resistance.  God does not always concur with that line of thought.  Sometimes there is more iron sharpens iron than we would have included in our own version of a divine plan, if we were consulted on the matter.

Sometimes we look around at what’s happening in our world and wonder if God took a couple weeks or decades off, but that’s not the case.

We are moving to what will be a glorious day.  There will be trials and tribulation along the way.  Jesus promised we would have trouble in the world, but he said to take courage, take heart, he has overcome the world.

Today, more than ever, we must trust that God is sovereign.  We must be assured that God is in control.  We must know that God has good plans for us and will never leave nor forsake us.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, even when you don’t comprehend the whole plan, even when you don’t understand the next step.  Just take your next step in faith.  God’s got this.

Trust him.

Amen.