Skulking away
Thursday, Oct. 1
Genesis 31:1-55 Read it here Listen to it here

Jacob continues to look less promising as the founder of a people who will bring God’s blessing to the world.
Rachel, too, shows herself to be her father’s daughter, stealing and lying. Her decision to take her father’s household gods (idols believed to protect the family and its property) suggests that she doesn’t recognize the true God—at least not exclusively. Possession of the gods would also strengthen any claim she or Jacob might make on Laban’s property after his death, so there was a practical side to the theft as well.
Laban responds with anger, and only God’s intervention protects Jacob and his people from retribution. The two part, not on good terms, but with a covenant that provides protection for both.
Laban’s words in verse 49 sound almost sentimental: “May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.” Instead, they are a request for God to ensure that each stays true to the treaty they have made. This is even more explicit in verse 53, “May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”
In sneaking away in secret, Jacob looks weak and fearful.
There will be many more stories in the Bible of weak and fearful people trying to run away: Jonah not wanting to preach and the disciples hiding behind locked doors after the crucifixion come to mind.
But as we’ll read tomorrow (and many more times), God excels at using human weakness to highlight his own strength and faithfulness.

Thursday meditation

Proverbs 3:19-20
By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge the watery depths were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew.

Prayer focus
Lord, grant me the humility to trust in your strength rather than in my own efforts.

-Rev. Mark Fleming