Lies Catch Up

    It is a beautiful Easter Morning.  Everyone is talk about Jesus not being in the grave today.  I am talking about a reason why He is not in that grave.  I am going into why He even bothered coming here, dying horribly, and rose again to give us hope.  We do have hope today.  We may not be spending the holiday with our family because of the a pandemic, but we have people praying for us.  I am praying over whoever chooses read this to be healthy and find their hope.

    Laban did not just have two daughters married to the same man.  He also had sons.  These sons had to live in the shadow of Jacob when he was working for their father.  They had their own jealousy.  Jacob may have been blessed, but he had little regard for other people.  He took advantage of what God had given and it made him an unliked type of popular.   When he fled with what was rightfully his, he left bitterness in his wake.  His cousins believed that Jacob had cheated them.  He had not, but he had not been honest either.  Jacob's manipulative personality was catching up with him.

    It was the daughters of Laban who were hurt the most.  They were treated like foreigners by their own family because their loyalty had shifted to their husband.  I imagine they both felt like they had to show the most loyalty because of their own competition with each other.  They received no inheritance from their father (dowry).  In response, Rachel had stole the house gods (idols) to take with her as a keep sake, but did not tell Jacob.  So when Laban entered their camp a week later, he accused them of stealing.  Jacob felt secure when he declared that they had not.  Rachel did not want to be in trouble or have Jacob in trouble, so she sat on the idols in her saddle bag and declared that she could not move due to female issues.  

    Jacob had served Laban 20 years.  He had done his time plus some while Laban took advantage of him.  Together Jacob and Laban made a dynamic duo of manipulation.  No one in the story actually shows their best character.  When you ignore God's boundaries, you invite heart ache, stress, and repercussion into your life.  In the end of it they accepted each other and had a proper farewell dinner.  God witnessed the peaceful covenant made between the two and blessed it.  The pillar they made together became a boundary line where neither side should ever cross again.  Jacob made a sacrifice to honor God and they all peacefully went to bed.  

    The next morning Jacob and his family continued on toward his home.  Toward a much worse offense that he had done.  He still had to face his brother.  He had run out of places to run by burning all his bridges.  Jacob is not alone.  We have all have burned bridges.  Jesus is the only one that can rebuild them.  We have to be honest with ourselves and toward others, but that is not enough.  We have to let Jesus into our hearts to change it.  That is the only way things can truly be fixed.  That is why He came.

Genesis 31