Part three of a five-part message accompanying chapter 2 of The Story

Years ago I decided that any time I said something negative about someone to a person who didn’t need to know, I would go to the person I’d talked to and say, “When I told you about so-and-so, I was gossiping and that was wrong. I apologize, and I ask that you not let the story go further.” I dreaded doing this, but I knew it was the least I could do to repay my debt to the person I’d wronged.

Ruben's painting of Jacob and Esau reconciling

Peter Paul Rubens, "The Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau," 1624

It’s often hard to admit our wrongs. We may fear losing face or suffering retaliation. Some people avoid those they’ve wronged at all costs. Yet Jesus said we should make things right with those who have something against us even before we bring God gifts (Matthew 5:23–24). This was Jacob’s predicament as he paused before the river separating him from Esau.

In my last two posts we saw that God told Jacob to go home, a place he’d fled twenty years before because his brother Esau vowed to kill him. Jacob courageously started on his way, but panicked when he heard Esau was coming with four hundred men. He stopped franticly planning long enough to pray and repeat God’s promise to him.

Apparently during Jacob’s prayer time, the Holy Spirit encouraged him to make amends. After all, the split between Esau and him was his fault: he had deceitfully defrauded his brother.

Isn’t that a common result of prayer? The Holy Spirit reminds us of the issues we haven’t really dealt with appropriately and tugs our conscience, reminding us we actually have to make things right. Jacob’s return home required another courageous step.

Repay Debts

Jacob stayed up that night and selected a gift for his brother Esau (Genesis 32:13). Officially, he didn’t owe Esau anything: his father’s oral blessing was legally binding even though Jacob had tricked his dad into thinking he was Esau. But spiritually, he needed to make things right. From all that Jacob had, he separated out that which would make restitution to his brother. In so doing, he let go of the greed that had driven him to defraud Esau.

Coming clean when we’ve wronged someone takes courage. Our pride likes to keep us from admitting our wrongs, and tempts us to justify ourselves by looking at the other person’s wrongs (real or not). But repaying debts we have the means to repay and apologizing for wrongdoing is essential for spiritual growth and healthy relationships.

Jacob couldn’t make up for all the pain he’d caused, but he readied what he could before meeting the challenge that comes next in this series.

Related Posts

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 1

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 2

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 4

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 5

 

 

Part two of a five-part message accompanying chapter 2 of The Story
Ruben's painting of Jacob and Esau reconciling
Peter Paul Rubens, “The Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau,” 1624

Sometimes doing what’s right brings hardship. An addict who finally seeks help must face all those things he was running from that got him hooked in the first place. Obeying Jesus’ command to talk to others about sin can strain relationships. Moving because we sense God’s call brings difficult adjustments and many losses. As happened to me, addressing a co-worker’s inappropriate actions can increase tensions in the workplace. The courageous course often passes through dark valleys.

Jacob’s was. In my last post, Jacob courageously started on his way to obey God’s command to return home, but heard Esau was coming with four hundred men.

With adrenaline flowing and heart racing, Jacob planned for the worse. He divided the people into two groups, thinking if Esau attacked one, the other could escape. Perhaps he considered fleeing back with the escapees if God didn’t come through.

But Jacob was a prophet and God’s command to go home was unmistakable. He didn’t allow panic to rule: he took another courageous step.

Be Still and Pray

Jacob stopped his frantic planning and prayed, a courageous step both because he had to pause from preparing to protect himself and because honest prayer opens us up to hearing what we might not want to hear, such as a word to move in a direction we’d rather not go.

Here’s Jacob’s faith-fostering prayer:

First, he recalled his relationship with God: He called God the God of his grandfather, Abraham, and his father, Isaac. He cried out, “O Lord, who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper’” (Genesis 32:9).

Second, he remembered that God’s blessings are undeserved: “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups” (32:10). When we fear losing something, remembering that what we have is undeserved keeps us from concluding God owes us.

Third, he honestly stated his fear: “Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children” (32:11). Sometimes we think fear is of itself sinful, and that keeps us from admitting our fears to God and honestly asking for what we need. But Jacob didn’t do that: He told God exactly what he was afraid might happen.

Prayers like this calm fear. Do we fear financial ruin and loss of status? Do we worry about others’ opinions? Do we dread the loss of a beloved who brings us joy, companionship, and strength? Are we anxious over our child’s uncertain future? We can pray like Jacob.

Jacob’s prayer had a fourth element, but it’s so important that it stands alone as an important step of courage.

Promises Say

Jacob repeated God’s promise to him: “But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted’” (Genesis 32:12). Can’t you just hear peace calming his heart in the words, “But you have said,” as Jacob courageously put his trust in God’s promise? “But you have said” turns our focus from fear to faith.

Few things build faith and calm fear more than repeating God’s promises. When we need courage, we can write out God’s promises on cards and place them where we’ll see them often. We can memorize his promises and repeat them over and over until they’re a part of us. We can pray, “But you have said.” There’s nothing like God’s promises to bring peace in the presence of fear.

Jacob still hadn’t completed God’s task, though. We’ll continue this story in the next post.

Related Posts

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 1

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 3

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 4

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 5

 

 

Part one of a five-part message accompanying chapter 2 of The Story
Ruben's painting of Jacob and Esau reconciling

Peter Paul Rubens, "The Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau," 1624

When I was about 21 and working at a megachurch, a co-worker more than twice my age to whom I didn’t report moved two brown filing cabinets into my cubicle and dropped on my desk a foot-high stack of invoices to be filed and handwritten letters on yellow paper to be typed. A manager laughed when I told him and said to tell the co-worker his work wasn’t my job. As I tried, this much taller man with tight, grizzled curls and bristly beard lifted his chin high, stared down at me from watery blue eyes that drooped slightly at the outer corners, frowned, and said that I had to do whatever he said because I was a woman and he was a man.

As I tried to get myself out of this increasingly tense situation, my mouth felt full of cotton, my hand trembled, and I stuttered for the first time in my memory.

Later that afternoon he repeated his comments to the church’s chief administrator and was fired. But one thing I learned from that bizarre experience is that sometimes nervousness, tension, and fear bring unexpected physical responses that we can’t control.

I used to think just feeling fear was sinful: it’s not. God gave us physical responses so we could perceive and escape danger quickly. Many “Do not fear” verses are akin to a loving mother telling her child on the first day of school, “Don’t be afraid—you’ll be okay.” Others, like Jesus’ admonition not to fear those who can kill the body but not the soul (Luke 12:4), exhort us to courageously obey despite fear of consequences.

Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but the willingness to do what’s right despite fear.

Revelation 21:8 initially struck me as odd: it says that the coward’s final destination is hell. You see, to continually disobey out of fear of losing something is to love that thing more than God—it’s idol worship. It’s the opposite of what Jesus said his followers must do: deny themselves and be willing to lose everything in the world and even their own lives for him (Matthew 16:24–26). Following Jesus takes courage.

C. S. Lewis put it this way in The Screwtape Letters: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”

The Old Testament gives us an example of courageous obedience in the story of Jacob’s reunion with his twin brother, Esau. Jacob had fled Esau, who wanted to kill him. Yet God told Jacob to return home despite his fear. Jacob met the challenges he faced courageously in seven ways we can emulate.

Start on the Way

When God told Jacob to return home to his family, he’d been gone twenty years. His brother had vowed to kill him after Jacob tricked their father into giving him what belonged to Esau. Their mother had told Jacob she’d let him know when Esau’s anger subsided, but word never came. Nonetheless God told him to go home and promised to be with him. Jacob set out with his family, possessions, herds, flocks, and servants without knowing how God would protect him.

When we know what’s right to do, the first courageous step is to simply start on the way.

Starting out courageously is no guarantee all will go smoothly, however. Jacob sent Esau a message saying he was heading home. But when the messengers returned, they reported Esau was coming with four hundred men.

As with Jacob, when we courageously obey, our situation may seem to worsen. Jacob needed to continue to courageously act, as we’ll see in my next post.

Related Posts

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 2

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 3

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 4

Courage: Jacob’s Example Part 5

 

I’ve finished The Story: Personal Journal & Discussion Guide and you can get it free on the Subscriber Specials page, which you can access here! This guidebook takes you through the overall grand themes of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It accompanies Zondervan’s The Story, which groups Bible excerpts into thirty-one chapters. The Personal Journal & Discussion Guide adds questions that help you apply the concepts you’re learning to your life and that stimulate robust discussions. It explains history and adds charts to help you grasp the big ideas more easily.

Picture of 'The Story: Personal Journal & Discussion Guide'

The Story: Personal Journal & Discussion Guide

Shelley Leith, National Church Coach and Story Specialist at Zondervan, called this guide “a phenomenal, high-engagement tool”! Cool, huh?

Nearly 200 women in my church started going through The Story with simple discussion questions when we realized we needed more in-depth questions that would help everyone apply the passages they were reading to their everyday lives and that would provide more explanation for those who wanted it. So I wrote this discussion guide for them. Our women’s ministry director, Lori Marshall, sent a couple lessons off to Zondervan, and now Zondervan is adding them to their free online resource library.

Acknowledgements

I owe a quite a few people some great big thanks.

Thank you first of all to my wonderful husband, Clay, who is always my first reader and offers invaluable insights (it helps that he holds a doctor of ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is a full-time professor in the Master of Arts in Christian apologetics program at Biola University). He also did everything he could to free my time when I was in a crunch.

Thank you, Lori Marshall, for entrusting this project to me, and for the encouragement, insights, and kind notes you gave along the way.

Thank you to all the other readers who advised and proofed: Lori Marshall, Holly Robaina, Donna Jones, and Kerrie Parlett. Thank you, too, to Cathryn Wade who is a joy to work with and who kept everything updated and posted at Crossline. Thank you, Angie Wright, who suggested creating discussion pages so people like she who do the lessons as a personal journal would have a place to interact. Thank you as well to our awesome women’s prayer team led by Gerri Donnelly—I so appreciated your prayers!

Thank you to the nearly 200 women who tested lessons 8 to 31 and gave such wonderful encouragement and support. Also, thank you to the women in my smaller summer Bible study group who tested the first seven lessons for me (they attend seven different churches so their perspectives were great).