Tuesday,
August 8, 2023
To learn from your mistakes is the
essential quality of wisdom. To apply
faith to wisdom is to serve God above all.
Jacob had a rocky, selfish start to life. It started in his mother’s womb, when he and
his twin brother, Esau, had a daily wrestling match. As they were born, Esau was first out, but Jacob
was hot on his heels, actually grabbing his brother’s foot. It was sibling rivalry with the first breath.
The story of their lives in their father Isaac’s home
was contentious, to say the least.
Jacob’s selfish behavior divided his mother and dad, and made an enemy
of his twin brother. Esau was so angry
with his brother’s treacherous ways, Jacob had to leave home and go live with
their uncle Laban at a safe distance.
Esau swore he’d kill his twin if ever they met again.
Fast forward twenty years…Jacob is much wiser, and is
on his way home to reconcile with his family.
He has no clue as to Esau’s mindset…will his brother make good on his
vengeance threat? Will it end in calamity? Jacob is wise at this point, dividing his
wives and children into two camps, hoping to minimize losses of life and
property, if Esau is still bent on Jacob’s death. But a new dimension has foraged its’ way into
Jacob’s life and thinking – faith! The
night before he was to face Esau, he met face-to-face with God’s angel, and the
outcome was Jacob’s commitment to serve God, and live by faith, even if it
meant giving up everything he'd gained, or even his own life.
What Jacob had learned was what Jesus told Peter
hundreds of years later – swords, be they steel or the treachery of human
selfishness, may work for awhile, but they have little place in the heart of
God. It is faith that wins.[1]
Seasoning the wisdom of learned mistakes and rocky
roads, with faith God has given, is the mark of a life changed and usable in
God’s Kingdom. It took Jacob decades of
hard lessons to shed his clever ways in favor of God’s clear kindness…the deep
faith of the unashamed!
For You Today
This world will
afford you many opportunities to follow both Esau and Jacob’s early mistakes
and sins…greed, treachery, revenge, and power.
In the end, those things only produce pain and regret, whether you wind
up in jail, or residing in a mansion.
It’s all loss in Heaven’s record books.
The other, wiser choice is to season whatever you have learned with
faith to do what the prophet Micah wrote:
do what is right, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
You chew on that as you
hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
There are about 2,600 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.
Title Image:
via Wikimedia Commons
Images without citation are in public domain. Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT©
