Beyond Deception

Genesis to Now:

Beyond Deception

 Dear Christa--

Sometimes, in fear and at a loss of what to do is just where God wants us to be. Indeed, isn’t it when we have no place to turn and we’ve exhausted our own resources that we totally fall before God and “struggle” with him?

Here, in the dark, after 20 years of work and deception, Jacob finally acknowledges what he really wants is to be blessed by God. Finally, in a night of wrestling between himself and God, Jacob commits to God Himself. Jacob may have appeared to win in this struggle, but the wound the Lord gave him was a daily reminder—every time he took a step—that ultimately God controlled his destiny.

We would think that Jacob at long last would have learned his lesson and not resorted to deception, but human frailty is hard to set aside, and the temptation to color our world through the lens of all sorts of deception is a life long struggle far beyond one night’s revelation. Didn’t even Jesus infer in His teachings that in this earthly and fallen nature mere people naturally walk like the deceiver who first trapped Eve?

And surely all these examples serve as our warning that from generation to generation we will war against the bent toward self deception, which is probably the very worst kind.

Jacob received God’s blessing, but the true Redeemer was yet ages to come—the only one Who can truly help us to walk a path of light

—the parishioner who doesn’t do anything