Jacob: Hungry for God’s Blessing

On October 12 we will celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of the day that Christopher Columbus first laid eyes on the New World. But Columbus was not the first European to visit America, as we all know. There is archaeological evidence of Viking settlements on the north coast of Newfoundland that pre-date Columbus by five hundred years.

What is significant about Columbus’s discovery in 1492 is that from that point on, the Old World would be in constant contact with the New, and the New World would never be the same again. It was a turning point in history like no other. Whether our background is European, African, or Asian, we are here today because of the events set in motion by Columbus.

How ironic that Columbus never intended to discover the New World at all. He was simply looking for a back door entrance to the Old World. The reason that Columbus was puttering around the Caribbean in 1492 was that he was searching for China. Reaching the Orient had become the obsession of his life.

China held a fascination for most Europeans, and a magnetic attraction for men like Christopher Columbus. Stories of the empire of the Great Khan had reached almost mythical proportions in fifteenth century Europe. Marco Polo, among others, had brought back tales of fabulous wealth and luxury from the world’s most advanced civilization, and those stories were embellished as they were re-told.

But there was a problem: China was almost impossibly difficult to reach by land. Apart from the deserts and colossal mountain ranges that lay in their path, the journey took them through that part of Asia dominated by the Muslims, and “infidels” from Europe were not especially welcome there.

So Columbus and other dreamers began to speculate about reaching China by sea. The Portuguese were already ranging down the west coast of Africa, and would soon round the Cape of Good Hope, proving that the Indian Ocean was not landlocked.

But Columbus began to dream of a more innovative plan. He knew that the world was round, as did other educated Europeans of his day. What he didn’t know was how big it was. He believed that a 2,500 mile journey to the west would take him to the shores of the Orient. He was convinced that such a voyage was possible, and so the “Enterprise of the Indies” as he called it, became the passion and obsession of his life.

He spent most of his waking moments scheming and planning, writing letters and talking to anyone who would listen about his great idea. He needed financial backing. He needed somebody to underwrite the expense of his voyage, and outfit him with the ships and supplies he needed.

At last he found them in the persons of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, and the rest, as they say, is history. All his scheming and planning had paid off and so, in 1492, Columbus sailed off, literally, into the sunset, sure that he was going to reach his goal and reap the glory that he was convinced he deserved.

The Bible records the life of another man, who, like Columbus, was a schemer who had great plans for himself. He was convinced that success, prosperity, and glory awaited him, and he was willing to do whatever he possibly could to gain them for himself. His name was Jacob.

Jacob was the second-born of twin boys. His brother’s name was Esau. The Bible tells us that before birth the twins wrestled together in their mother’s womb, and that when Esau was born, Jacob had his hand wrapped around his brother’s foot.

That’s why they named him Jacob. It means “he who grasps the heel”. In a more symbolic way, that name could imply somebody who was always trying to trip other people up. From what we know of Jacob’s character, that was a pretty accurate description of him. Jacob spent the rest of his life trying to make sure that Esau, and everybody else, didn’t get too far ahead of him.

Like many other twins I know, these two boys were as different as night and day. Esau was a rugged outdoorsman, like his father. He like nothing better than to go backpacking in the wilderness. He probably subscribed to Field and Stream magazine. He loved to hunt and fish and do those macho kinds of things. Naturally, his Dad thought he was wonderful.

Jacob was his polar opposite. The Bible tells us that Jacob was a quiet man who stayed among the tents. He was probably the kind of guy who enjoyed reading or gourmet cooking or just sitting around chatting with the womenfolk. He was probably a good listener and he learned to tune in to other people’s emotions. Naturally, his Mom loved him.

The two boys were not very close, in spite of the fact that they were twins. Apart from their personality differences, there were cultural factors that would have driven a wedge between them. As the firstborn son, though only by minutes, Esau would have enjoyed the enormous prestige that that ancient culture placed on the firstborn. Whenever he introduced his sons, Isaac would have said with pride “And this is Esau, my firstborn.”

The firstborn son had special rights of inheritance. He would get a double portion of his father’s estate. Along with that, the firstborn son would have the responsibility of taking care of his widowed mother. This was his birthright. I’m sure that this rankled Jacob no end. Not only did he feel it was so unfair that, as the second twin, he had missed out on that honor by mere minutes, but he probably thought he was actually more deserving of it than Esau.

You see, Jacob thought he was smarter than Esau, and maybe he was. He probably tried to make up for his own sense of inferiority by looking down his nose at Esau, and Esau’s way of life. He probably thought he was more cultured than Esau, more refined, and certainly in a better position to know what was best for his mother than Esau was.

All Esau cared about was his stupid hunting expeditions. He liked nothing better than to sit in a duck-blind in the rain with his hunting buddies. He was a simple man who lived for the moment. He had no mind for more complicated matters, like taking care of his father’s estate when that time came.

This is probably what motivated Jacob to get Esau to sell him his birthright. Esau had been out in the fields one day, and came home famished. The first thing that met him was the smell of a delicious, savory lentil stew that Jacob had whipped up, using a recipe that he had found in a back issue of Gourmet magazine. If you’ve ever walked past a bakery, you know the power that an aroma can have on your better judgment.

To make a long story short, Jacob got Esau to sell him his birthright for a bowl of stew. For Esau, the transaction meant nothing more than a full stomach. But for Jacob, it was a triumph of his own ingenuity. He proved to himself that he was, indeed, smarter than other people, especially his brother.

When you think your brother is an idiot, it doesn’t take much to go from conning him to stealing from him. That’s the next thing Jacob pulled on Esau, and it was to have far-reaching consequences for the rest of his life.

In Genesis 27, we read the shabby details. With his mother’s help, Jacob, who really lived up to his name, deceived his father and his brother and, in effect, re-wrote his father’s will.

You see, in the Ancient Middle East, a man’s deathbed pronouncements had legal force. That was when a man would declare his last will and testament. That was where he would dispose of his property and give his blessing to his children. As far as Isaac was concerned, the time had come for him to put into effect his last will and testament, which conferred upon Esau the birthright and the blessing as the firstborn.

Jacob, by taking advantage of his father’s blindness, succeeded in getting his father to pronounce those fateful words over himself. He stole the blessing that belonged to Esau.

When Esau found out about it, he was livid. The Bible tells us that Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” So Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

So Jacob had to flee. His dreams and his schemes had made him a fugitive. By reaching out and taking the blessing for himself, he had earned the hatred of his brother.

He fled five hundred miles to the northern part of Mesopotamia to a place called Haran. It was that part of the country that his mother had come from. In fact, his mother’s brother, a man named Laban, still lived there, and Laban turned out to be even more of a con-man than Jacob was.

He had two daughters, named Leah and Rachel. Jacob fell in love with Rachel. Laban said “Work for me seven years and I’ll give you my daughter as your wife.” So Jacob did. He worked for Laban for seven years, and on his wedding day, he lifted the veil of his new bride and found, not Rachel, but Leah smiling at him! Laban, the beaming father of the bride, explained “Oh, I forgot to tell you about this rule we have in Haran: the girls have to be married off in order of age.” The deceiver had been deceived! But Jacob was just stubborn enough to hang in there and work another seven years to get Rachel.

In all, Jacob lived in Haran for twenty years. All was not sweetness and light while he was there. His two wives envied each other, and they and their maidservants got involved in a baby-making contest in an effort to win Jacob’s love. It was a pretty sad situation, but it did end up producing a lot of kids!

And Jacob’s relationship with Laban, not the best to begin with, began to deteriorate. It seemed that Jacob’s flocks kept getting bigger, while Laban’s kept getting smaller. Resentment from Laban’s sons grew until Jacob knew he was no longer welcome there. So he left. But where could he go?

Even though twenty years had passed, the memory of what he had done to Esau haunted Jacob. Could he go back to the land of Canaan and risk meeting his brother there? But he sensed that God was telling him to go back, so he went.

He went back with his wives and his children and his herds. He had left Canaan a lonely fugitive; he was coming back a rich, successful man. But Jacob was not a happy man. There was no peace in his heart. Twenty years of scheming and deceiving and grasping for every advantage had left him drained and disillusioned. But that is when God met Jacob in a real way and changed his life.

You see, although Jacob had had encounters with God earlier, it wasn’t until this moment that he would really enter into a right relationship with God. Prior to this, Jacob always referred to God as “the God of my father”. God wasn’t personal to him.

So Jacob went through life alone, looking out for Number One, reaching and grabbing for everything he could get. He believed that any potential relationship with God would have to be to his advantage.

After he had his dream at Bethel of the stairway to heaven; he said “If God will be with me and watch over me, and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear and protect me from my enemies, then he will be my God.” In other words, he was bargaining. “Bless me and I’ll serve you.” Just like so many people do today.

Well, God had blessed him, but it hadn’t brought him happiness. In fact, the blessing just made him more and more miserable. Now, he found himself on his way back to Canaan. But he was really on his way back to his past and the unfinished business that lay there.

In Genesis 32, we read that Jacob had his family cross over the ford of the Jabbok, leaving him alone on the other side. You can almost sense his foreboding and spiritual tension. We read that that night, a man came and wrestled with him till daybreak. The text reveals that that man was God in human form.

I have to admit to you that I do not fully understand the nature of this wrestling match, other than that God was grappling with Jacob in a significant new way. Perhaps as they wrestled, Jacob began to realize the power of God, and the persistence of God, and the fact that God wanted to control his life. At one point in their wrestling, God touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was injured. Yet in spite of that injury, Jacob would not let go of God. He said “I will not let go unless you bless me.”

At that point, God asked him his name. “Jacob” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” And he blessed him there.

This was a crucial turning point in Jacob’s life. Although he didn’t become a perfect man after this encounter with God, he was a changed man. He was changed spiritually - you cannot meet God face to face and not be changed. He was changed physically - he walked with a limp for the rest of his life - a graphic and painful reminder to himself and to everyone who saw him of his encounter with God.

There are four crucial spiritual lessons for us that come from this passage of Scripture:

1. Jacob had to hurt before he could be healed. Jacob’s encounter with God was brought on by a crisis. He was going back to Canaan to face his brother Esau. His mind was full of uncertainty and anxiety. He was afraid - he was afraid for his life.

Jacob’s heart was aching when God met him. His whole life, he had strived by any means to get ahead. He had fought and clawed and worked hard for everything he had. Somehow he knew it was his destiny to be blessed, but where had it gotten him? His relatives resented him, his family was in turmoil, and his brother wanted to kill him. There was no peace in his heart.

God often meets us when we are hurting. C.S. Lewis wrote “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain.”

You may be here today with pain in your life. It may be physical pain, or it may be more like Jacob’s pain - pain in the soul: the pain of broken relationships; the pain of knowing you’ve lived your life for selfish reasons. You need to realize that your pain is God’s way of getting your attention. God wants to meet you in your pain, like he did Jacob, and bring healing to your life.

2. Jacob had to be emptied before he could be filled. Remember what he did the day before that fateful night? He sent his family across the Jabbok river. The word “Jabbok” means “to empty, to pour out”. The Jabbok empties into the Jordan River not far from where Jacob stood.

All of Jacob’s family, all of his possessions - his flocks, his belongings, his servants - all went over to the other side of the Jabbok. Jacob was emptied, and now, the Bible says, he was alone. And that is when God could speak to him.

Did you ever stop to think that God takes things away from you in order to give you something better? Jacob had filled his life up with good things. He had lots of money. In a day when children were a measure of how prosperous you were, Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter. He had livestock and servants and tents to live in.

By every measure of the day, he was a successful man. He had it made. But it wasn’t until all those things were taken away from him that God could really do business with him. He had to be emptied before he could be filled.

3. He had to be broken before he could be blessed. God touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it from its socket. From that day on, he walked with a limp. That limp was the sign that he had gone one-on-one with God. It was God’s mark of ownership on Jacob’s life. With every step he took, Jacob remembered the Lord’s strength and his own weakness.

The hip and thigh area are the strongest part of our bodies. Just ask Bo Jackson. A couple of years ago, Jackson was on top of the sports world. He was an All-Star baseball player, and a game-breaking NFL running back. He excelled at two professional sports. He was an international celebrity, and a corporate spokesman for many products. Until he injured the socket of his hip.

He claimed he would come back from the injury, that he would be his old self again. He went to the finest medical specialists in the country. He underwent rigorous physical therapy for many months. But it was all for nought. There was a noticeable limp in his step. His blazing speed was but a memory. He had been touched in the area of his greatest strength, and now it was gone.

What is your greatest strength? What is the area in which you feel you have accomplished the most? Is it your skill with people? Is it your ability as a communicator or a manager or an innovator? Perhaps you are unusually creative. Maybe you have a particular talent in music or art.

Are you willing to allow God to break you in the area of your greatest strength? Are you willing to “walk with a limp” in that area, so to speak, so that God can remind you that the power doesn’t come from you but from him? Better to limp in the daylight with God’s power than to run in the dark with your own. Jacob had to be broken before he could be blessed.

4. Jacob had to face his old identity before God could give him a new one. Remember at the end of their wrestling match that God asked Jacob his name? Why did he do that? Because he wanted Jacob to come to terms with who he was. The name Jacob meant “deceiver”. Jacob had lived his life grasping for success, grasping for glory, grasping for blessing, but doing so on his own terms, not God’s. He went through life trying to trip other people up; trying to get ahead of them, but he ended up tripping himself up.

Before God could make him into a new person, Jacob needed to admit his own sinfulness. Then, and only then, God could give him a new name, the name “Israel”. There is a lot of discussion about what exactly the name Israel means. Some experts say it means “one who strives with God.” Others say it means “God perseveres” or “God rules”. Whatever it means, there can be no denying that the name of God was now part of Jacob’s identity - part of his very name.

Jacob was a man who was hungry for blessing. He tried to get it on his own terms. But he could never know the true blessing of God until he had been hurt, emptied, broken, and reminded of who he was. He needed to meet God face to face. After that, he was a new man.

What about you? Have you met God in that face to face way? Is the Lord really in the driver’s seat of your life, or is He more like a hood ornament - a decorative fixture that really has nothing to do with the way the car operates.

If you are the driver, you can strive and drive your life toward the goal of happiness and fulfilment, but you will never get there. Like Jacob, your heart will grow heavy with guilt and pain. Like Christopher Columbus, you’ll be totally lost without even realizing it. You may be groping through life, thinking that the big prize is just around the corner, when you are really half a world away.

Think about it. We all need to come to the place in our lives that Jacob came to. We all need to come to that moment of decision.