Genesis 28:1  So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.” (NIV)

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Rebekah and Jacob tricked Old Isaac into giving Esau’s rightful blessing to Jacob. Everybody knows the blessing goes to the older or oldest son. Everybody also knows how sometimes it’s the younger son who has a better mind for administration than the older. Also, sometimes there isn’t an older son, or a son at all. 

Here, there was only one of these issues in play. Jacob ended up with the blessing the culture of the day expected to go to the older son. God has a way of seeing beyond our rules and preferences, and working out his will his way. Old Ike apparently finally saw God’s greater intention and blessed Jacob a second time as he set out on his journey to his mother’s family to find a wife.

Jacob, in a manner of speaking, was doubly blessed. 

The first blessing included provision, dominion, and covenant. (See Genesis 27:27-29.) The second blessing included covenant promises and God’s protection in his leaving and returning. (See Genesis 28:1-4.) God affirmed these blessings from Dear Old Ike and supplemented them with words of even greater blessing. 

You’d think Jacob, now triply blessed as he was, would leave his sneaky ways behind. Why would he need them? God declared he was in charge of Jacob’s life and well-being. He promised his personal presence with Jacob “until I have done what I have promised you,” (28:15). 

Jake the Snake would no longer require cunning and intrigue to get what he wanted as long as what he wanted was what God wanted for him. However, if there’s one thing we’ve seen in just about every character in this story since chapter 2, it’s that each one of them, at one time or another, and often repeatedly, tried to do God’s will their own way, or thought they had a better way than God’s way.

We have also seen that trying to improve on God’s plans never works out well. God is smarter, better, and faster than all of us individually and collectively. He knows what we do not and cannot know. He sees what we cannot, and helps us see what we do not. 

Pay close attention to the last thing God says to Jacob in his dream. He said, “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,”(28:15). 

Years later, Jacob and God will meet again as Jake returned home with his family and belongings. Jacob would not have another dream. Instead, he would have a fight that settled once and for all who was really in charge and who was really leading the expedition. 

Wrestling with God left Jacob with a new name and a more deliberate gait. Wrestling with God, rather than running from him or ignoring him, is where blessings are fully recognized.

Here are two good ideas. First, don’t ignore God. Second, don’t be afraid to wrestle with him. You always win when you wrestle with God, even if you end up with a limp.

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I will wrestle with God when I don’t understand his will and ways.

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Our Father, I will not ignore you. I will accept your invitation to hash it out with you. I will trust that whatever comes from our match, I will be better for it. Amen.