Jacob…The Man in the Middle

As the story of Isaac, the second Patriarch, continues, his father Abraham longed for Isaac a wife. Customary in those days was for the wife to be chosen by the parents. Because of this, Abraham was adamant that Isaac’s wife would not come the land of Canaan. He told his servant to go back to the land where Abraham’s was from to find Isaac a wife. The interchange between Abraham and his servant was one of most beautiful portrayals of faith in scripture.  But I will save that story for another day.

Abraham’s servant set out towards the land of Abraham’s place of origin believing that God would show him the perfect wife for Isaac.  And God did!

“Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her…” Genesis 24:66, 67 NIV

If you looked deeper into this story and into this moment, you would see layers of faith and love. Isaac took Rebekah as his wife, a woman he had never met, and loved her to the depths of his being.

Then…

“Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, ‘Why is this happening to me…’” Genesis 25:21, 22

Within Rebekah’s womb were twin boys. These boys fought with each other within the womb and continued to fight outside of the womb.  Their relationship was defined by the competition that eventually ruined the brotherhood.  

“The Lord said to her,

‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” Genesis 25:23 NIV

“Sweet momma, get ready because your boys are gonna fight!”

But even though Rebekah had been warned, she fed into and even orchestrated the story in which all went wrong in the Patriarch household. With lies and deception, relationships were lost. The hope for the covenant was lost.

Rebekah birthed the twins and named them Jacob and Esau. Jacob is our third Patriarch, but he was not worthy of this calling. He was not a man of faith therefore undeserving of the title Patriarch.

Within this story, Jacob stole the birthright and the blessing from his older brother Esau (Esau came out of the womb first). Rebekah was front and center in this deception because of her favoritism towards Jacob.

Esau wanted to kill Jacob, so he said once his father was dead, he would pursue and kill Jacob for what he had done.

So, mom derives a plan…of course! This mom has control issues! She tells Jacob to leave and escape to the land of Harran where Abraham was from. Since she had to keep her deception a secret, she told Isaac that Jacob needed to leave to find a wife from Harran. Now, this was partially true but not the full truth. Nevertheless, Jacob was out of there.

But before he left, his father Isaac passed on the baton of Patriarch to Jacob. God had appointed Jacob to be the man to carry on this covenant, the promise that a nation of God would be built. But Jacob didn’t have faith…but that didn’t matter to God!

You see, even in our times of faithlessness, God it still at work orchestrating things in our lives so we can have a divine appointment with Him.

As Jacob was leaving this is what his father said to him…

“May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land GOD GAVE TO ABRAHAM.” Genesis 28:3,4

God’s covenant being passed on…even to a man with no faith.

God had a plan to meet Jacob “in the middle!”

THE MIDDLE

The middle is somewhere in between two points. In the case of the spiritual middle, the two points are complete devotion to God and complete devotion to self. Often, we find ourselves “in the middle”. We don’t want complete devotion to God because that may seem too radical. And we don’t want complete devotion to self because…well, that’s just scary.  So, we choose the middle! The middle is comfortable and allows us to not devote ourselves either way.

JACOB…THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE

Jacob was the son of the mighty Patriarch, Isaac. His grandfather, Abraham was the first Patriarch. Jacob came from a line of Patriarchs whose faith allowed them the ground they walked on. The side which his forefathers chose was the side of faith…complete devotion to God.

But Jacob had stolen, lied, and deceived to get what he and his mother wanted. He stood firm on the ground of self-serving. This was the side that he chose. He was not a man worthy of the calling of God.  Especially not a man worthy to carry on the covenant God wrote to bring us back to Him.

As Jacob left the only home which he knew, he found himself moving from the point of full devotion to God from his forefathers heading towards the point of self-fulfillment in the land of Harran. In his journey, he grew tired. So he stopped to rest “in the middle.”

As Jacob’s feet were still on Canaan’s soil, he fell asleep.  In his sleep, God called out to him in a dream. This is what God said…

“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.^[d] 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU UNTIL I HAVE DONE WHAT I HAVE PROMISED YOU.” Genesis 28:13-15 NIV

But Jacob was on a journey heading to self-fulfillment. This word from God threw him off course. He had made his choice…but God intervened.

“Jacob, you can’t stay in the middle.  You must choose…choose between Me and full devotion or you and self-fulfillment. There is no middle ground. But I want to tell you because I love you so deeply, that if you choose devotion to Me, I will never leave you.”

I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU…words that we all want to hear but words we often lose faith in. We get lost within our own heads and our own doubts. We get so lost that we find ourselves hiding in places that we never desired to frequent…wilderness, pit in the ground, belly of a whale…the middle! These are places where men of the Old Testament ran to escape God’s calling for their lives.

When Jacob felt lost and alone running from the deception against his father, he found himself lying on the ground with his head rested on a rock. He was far away from home and far away from where he was running.  He was in the middle…lost in the middle. But God knew exactly where he was and while he was lost, God promised him that he would never be alone. God wanted to use Jacob. No matter how much in the middle he was, God was right there beside him.

Waking up from his sleep, Jacob knew he had a choice to make. He had heard God’s voice. He was startled to know that God had found him hiding in the middle between the land of his fathers and the land of his escape. When he awoke he said,

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I WAS NOT AWARE OF IT.” Genesis 28:16 NIV

How many times is God “in this place and we are not aware of it?”

You see, we think that we can hide in the middle or the wilderness or the pit…or even in the belly of the whale. But when God is wanting to purpose us for His story, He finds us even in our hiding.

Are you in “the middle” today? Has God asked you to do something out of obedience and you are hiding within your lack of confidence or your lack of faith? Remember what God said to Jacob…

“I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU UNTIL I HAVE DONE WHAT I HAVE PROMISED YOU.”

Even Patriarchs can get lost in the middle!

Join me next week as we learn Jacob’s response and thanks for my sweet friend, Emileigh who inspired me this week to take myself out of the middle.