Bible in a Year, Day 21: How God Works Through Delays

Today's reading

Today's reading is Genesis 29, where Jacob arrives among his relatives and falls in love at a well.

Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her.

(Genesis 29:20, WEB)

Reflection

Jacob came to Laban's house running from his own lies and deception. There he saw Rachel, and he worked seven years for her hand in marriage. Pastor Jack Graham notes that because of his love, those years flew by like days.

Then came the wedding night. Jacob woke up next to Leah, Rachel's older sister, and Laban had arranged it. As Pastor Graham put it, "The deceiver had been deceived." The man who had stolen his older brother's blessing was now married to the older sister of the woman he had chosen.

So Jacob worked another seven years for Rachel, and the damage piled up along the way. "Leah knew that she was not loved, and Rachel knew that she was favored." Jealousy poisoned the entire household, and wives, children and servants ended up at war with one another.

Yet God did not walk away. Pastor Graham points out that God did not write off this family in the line of the promise of the Messiah. From it came the twelve tribes of Israel. From Leah's son Judah came King David, and from David's line came Jesus. In Pastor Graham's words, "when God doesn't rule, he overrules."

That is the good news inside a hard chapter. Human love can be fickle, conditional and slow to arrive, but Pastor Graham reminds us that "God loves us with an everlasting love." That love kept loving through all the days and years of the Old Testament, and it reaches us now in Jesus.

Take it with you

• Where are you waiting right now, and what would it mean to trust that God is still working in the delay?
• Is there a messy or painful part of your family story you have written off? God did not write off Jacob's.
• Where have you tried to manage things by your own cleverness, and what would it look like to rest in God's faithful love instead?

Prayer

Lord, you see the places where we are waiting and the places where our families hurt. Forgive us for trying to force our own outcomes. Thank you that you do not give up on messy people or broken households, and that you work through what we cannot fix. Help us trust your timing and rest in your everlasting love. Let us know the love of Jesus Christ today. Amen.