Advent Day 6 - Jacob - Genesis 28:10-22

Jacob has always irritated me. Who knows what he looked like, but I've always imagined him as ruggedly handsome, with playboy smirks and a way with words. He seems like a conceited lying mama's boy. (Although I'm not a big fan of Jacob, I am glad that God used him. I'm so glad that God doesn't always use the perfect and "wise" option - that he chooses the weak, the unworthy and unloved to carry out his plans...)

But of course the leading man would choose a gorgeous leading lady. I think that is what bugs me the most - poor Leah. She probably fell for his good looks and charm just like her sister. Can you imagine how heartbroken she must have felt after her wedding night when Jacob tossed her aside in anger? 

There have been times in my life that I could relate to Leah. I was always the youngest in my class, relegated to eternal girlhood while all my best friends were metamorphosing into model-look-alikes for Seventeen magazine. Always the friend of all the boys, but never the girlfriend. I sympathize with wanting to be desired. To be "The One".

And for years marriage definitely filled that hole. I was finally "The One", and yet, slowly, almost imperceptibly the same flashes of restlessness and comparison have crept back in. It might only take a glance at Facebook to see glowing skin and glistening abs, or glimpse a commercial with a be-winged buxom brunette...

Or maybe it's just the friend who got a new car. 

It doesn't matter what sets it off, but the feeling is instant and strong. 

Discontentment. 

The desire to be more than I am, experience more than I do or be someone I'm not.

It's so hard to remind myself that this feeling - this discontent - is a built in alarm system from God. It's his way of saying "Helloooo...There IS something missing in your life... ME!" I've heard the voice so many times its easy to brush right over it, not acknowledging it for what - Who - it really is.

Discontentment is not bad, as long as it turns us to Christ. As long as the end result is a heart that is more thankful, more aware of God's Graces in it's life. And the longer I live, the more I'm realizing that this discontent, this yearning will never really leave. We are made of earth for heaven, and until we are there, a part of us will always long for more. The key is: Where does this yearning lead us to?

God always redeems what is hurt, lost and broken...

God blessed the pretty-boy schemer with a brood of sons and an eternal covenant.

In the end it was Leah - not Rachel - who bore the son who continued the lineage of Christ. 

A plain nobody from nowhere - a carpenter's son - would grow to became the hero of the world.

What is lost, broken or hurting in you?

Is your heart yearning for something you can't put a finger on?

Turn to The One who makes all things new. 

Who brings beauty from ashes. 

Who saved the world.

All is Grace, 

Carie

Day 6  -  Jacob  -  Genesis 28:10-22

The Message (MSG)

10-12 Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran. He came to a certain place and camped for the night since the sun had set. He took one of the stones there, set it under his head and lay down to sleep. And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground and it reached all the way to the sky; angels of God were going up and going down on it.

13-15 Then God was right before him, saying, “I am God, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. I’m giving the ground on which you are sleeping to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will be as the dust of the Earth; they’ll stretch from west to east and from north to south. All the families of the Earth will bless themselves in you and your descendants. Yes. I’ll stay with you, I’ll protect you wherever you go, and I’ll bring you back to this very ground. I’ll stick with you until I’ve done everything I promised you.”

16-17 Jacob woke up from his sleep. He said, “God is in this place—truly. And I didn’t even know it!” He was terrified. He whispered in awe, “Incredible. Wonderful. Holy. This is God’s House. This is the Gate of Heaven.”

18-19 Jacob was up first thing in the morning. He took the stone he had used for his pillow and stood it up as a memorial pillar and poured oil over it. He christened the place Bethel (God’s House). The name of the town had been Luz until then.

20-22 Jacob vowed a vow: “If God stands by me and protects me on this journey on which I’m setting out, keeps me in food and clothing, and brings me back in one piece to my father’s house, this God will be my God. This stone that I have set up as a memorial pillar will mark this as a place where God lives. And everything you give me, I’ll return a tenth to you.”