Plan?

For 2021, I am reading through the Bible with the Bible Project-Biblical Storyline Reading Plan on the YouVersion App. This devotional will follow along with the daily reading.

Today's reading is: Genesis 27-29

God planned around Laban's trickery. Jacob needed a lot of difficulty in his life to shape him. In Malachi 1:2 we are told that the Lord loved Jacob. We might ask: if God loved Jacob, then why did the Lord allow Jacob to have such a a difficult life? Even the part of the story where Jacob doesn't have anything to offer in exchange for a bride is a bit strange to me. In Genesis 27:2, Isaac says he doesn't know when he will die. I tend to think that Isaac died soon after this encounter, but Isaac doesn't pass away until long after Jacob had all his children and Esau and Jacob have reunited. In Genesis 35:29, Isaac breathed his last as an old man. Esau and Jacob buried him. It is not clear why Isaac had a bride price to offer Laban, but Jacob did not. 

So, Jacob ends up working for 14 years for his 2 wives who were at odds with one another. Jacob builds his own life his own way. Jacob was a fighter. His whole life he was fighting someone. When Jacob meets Rachel, he ignores what the shepherds tell him about how they roll back the well stone. Jacob couldn't seem to stop defying convention everywhere he went.

Where is God through all of this?

In Genesis 35:3, Jacob says that God answered him in his distress and was with him wherever he went. Through all Jacob's struggles, he knew that God was with him. A life full of fight doesn't necessarily mean a life without the love of God. God gives us exactly the challenges we need to change our hearts and turn us toward Him, because He loves us and wants us with Him.