“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
– Genesis 28:15
Jacob was selfish and crafty. After he left Bethel, he arrived at his uncle Laban’s house and didn’t think about God for the next twenty years. He didn’t know it was God who sent Rachel to meet him. He forgot he was blessed. He focused on gathering riches and building up his own family. For twenty years he schemed. For twenty years he forgot God. Only when Laban’s countenance was no longer favorable toward him did he began to seek God. He testified of his life during this period: “By day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes” (Gen. 31:40). A life without God is a life of agony.
Adapted from A Sketch of Genesis, by Titus Chu, page 139-140.
Tomorrow: “Forgetting God” (2)