Word of Encouragement (03/17/2022)
“God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!” (Gen. 28:3-4).
This prayer of blessing comes from Isaac to Jacob as he gets ready to go to his mother’s hometown to find a wife. This was Rebekah’s idea. She knew that the angry Esau was looking for an opportunity to kill Jacob, who he believed had stolen his blessing. Isaac’s inspired blessing/cursing showed God’s judgment: Esau thought lightly enough of his birthright to sell it for a bowl of stew! To his credit, Isaac accepted what had happened as God’s will and wanted to bless Jacob as he sent him on his way.
Isaac invokes “God Almighty” to bless Jacob. How poignant this title of God was for him! He was a miracle child. His parents, Abraham and Sarah, must have told him hundreds of times. He had no memory of his parents being young: his father was 100 years old and his mother, 90 years old, when he was born. Isaac knew that he was a walking testament to the almighty power of God to bring him into this world through such parentage. So, now, he invokes his God Almighty to bless his son, who is going away, now knowing whether he will ever see him again. Brothers and sisters, let’s remember that his God Almighty is our God, too.
Isaac prays that God Almighty would bless Jacob and make him fruitful and multiply him, that he may become a company of peoples. He prayed this prayer because he knew God’s covenant promise to his father, Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation...” (Gen. 12:2). God even changed his father’s name from Abram to Abraham with a promise that He would make him the father of a multitude of nations (Gen. 17:5). But he had only two (twin) boys. So, in praying this prayer, he expresses his desire to see God’s promise being fulfilled in more tangible ways.
He also prays that Jacob and his descendants would take possession of the land that God promised to give to Abraham. Again, we see Isaac thinking about, and holding on to, the promises God made to his father Abraham, which has been handed down to him. We can see how deeply God’s promises were lodged in his consciousness and heart. He knew exactly what to pray for at critical times because they were constantly on his mind. Think about his situation: he was living as a stranger and alien in a foreign land. Why? Because of God’s promises to Abraham and to his children! They have been the driving force behind his perseverance through all the adversities and challenges he has faced throughout his life. They haven’t been fulfilled in his life. He might have learned from his father that his descendants will have to wait for four hundred years in a foreign country! But he has held on to the promises of God all his life and he wants Jacob to do the same.
What is the driving force behind your life? What is it that you hold on to to get through a difficult day/week/month/year(s)? Is it a vague sense of hope that all things will work out somehow and Time will take care of everything eventually because nothing lasts forever in this life, including a bad time? But don’t the ups and downs of life eventually end in the permanent down when we lie flat on our back in the grave? How is it better to believe in the impersonal Fate to be good to us than to believe in a personal God, who loves us enough to send His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life?
Has not God already shown us that He is faithful to fulfill His promises? Jacob came back to the promised land with twelve sons and a daughter. His family grew to millions while in Egypt and they came to possess the promised land. But we know that these were just provisionary fulfillments. God promised to bless all the families of the earth through the Offspring of Abraham and, by faith, we who were once Gentiles in the flesh, have been made true children of Abraham in Jesus Christ. And we have been promised a better promise land and inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. May the Lord enable us to hold on to this promise and live our life of sojourning in this present evil age with a living hope for our eternal inheritance in Jesus Christ!