Word of Encouragement (03/22/2022)
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.” (Gen. 28:20-22)
This is a vow, which is a form of prayer. A vow is a promise one makes to God on the condition that God grants his request. People engage in this when there is something they really desire but cannot get it on their own. You remember Hannah and her vow to dedicate the child to God if God would grant her a son. She was barren. She was persecuted by her husband’s other wife, Peninnah, who had many children. This vow came out of Hannah’s intense desire for a child.
What is interesting about this vow of Jacob is that he did not initiate it. Before he made this vow, God had appeared to him in a dream and promised certain things for him. What promises? Precisely the things Jacob requested in this vow! Why, then, did he make this vow? Why did he do it when God had already promised to give him what he was asking of Him?
Maybe this was a sign of Jacob’s weak faith. He was a cheater, after all. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a cheater would have a trust issue. This vow might have been Jacob’s attempt to make sure that God would keep His promise—as if it were possible for God to break His promise! This uncertainty would show up again when he returned many years later; he would wrestle with God all night to have God bless him, particularly by protecting him and his family from his brother. If this vow was from his weak faith, we can see how gracious and merciful God is to humor it.
But more likely is that Jacob made this vow out of a fresh sense of awe and gratitude, which struck him because God appeared to him and renewed Abraham’s covenant with him. Before he made this vow, he woke up from his dream and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.... How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:16-17). So, he named that place Bethel, which means “the houses of God.” How timely was this vision as he was starting his life as a fugitive from his own brother! And how grateful he must have been for His kindness and mercy! So, the spirit of Jacob’s vow was, “Lord, would You promise such wonderful things to me? Who am I that you should be so kind and merciful? If You indeed fulfill Your promises to me, I would do this and that for You!”
Here, we see a different approach to vow-making. Jacob’s vow was not transactional, which says, “If you do this for me, I will do that for you.” It was more relational: “Because you are so good to me, I will do this in thankfulness.” When we think of vows, we think of the solemn warning against not keeping them. So, we think of vows as something we should stay away from unless there is something we really want. But we see another strand in the Bible, which encouraged the people of God to make vows and perform them: “Make your vows to the LORD your God and perform them; let all around him bring gifts to him who is to be feared” (Ps. 76:11, etc.). Here, the Psalmist is encouraging the people of Israel to make vows after reviewing God’s mighty works and His glorious attributes (vv. 1-10). This is a reminder that God deserves more than mere words of thanksgiving and praise: we should express our gratitude in tangible expressions, be it a special offering or certain actions.
Our profession of faith is also our (church) membership vow. We make this vow as a grateful response to the grace God has shown to us in His Son Jesus Christ. Who are we that the Son of God should lay down His life for us while we were yet sinners? The rest of our life is to be an expression of this gratitude. But we can (and should) make “smaller” vows when God gifts us with special favor. We do this whenever God grants us a child, don’t we? We make a vow to raise them in the nurture and discipline of the Lord at the time of their baptism. May the Lord use this reflection to challenge all of us to think about how we thank Him! And may our gratitude to Him be more than just a fleeting feeling!