Jacob's Prayer Part-One

Saturday, February 11, 2012

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Jacob’s Prayer Part1

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 32:9

            Message of the verse:  “9 Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’”

            9a. Praying the Covenant:  In the first part of verse nine Jacob prays claiming the covenant that God had given to his grandfather Abraham, and passed on to his father Isaac, and then passed on to himself.  This is how he begins this prayer calling on the God who had made this covenant.

            9b. Praying the promise:  Now Jacob prays to God, reminding Him that He had told Jacob to leave Padan Aram and return to the land that he was born in, the land that God has promised to give to all of his relatives.  God had just came to Jacob in a dream to tell him that he should leave Padan Aram and return only days before he left and God had already seen him through one crisis with his father-in-law Laban, and now Jacob again fears something, this time it is own brother Esau who had told their mother that he would kill Jacob some twenty years before and Jacob had not seen him since, but was still afraid. 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is easy to say that Jacob should have had more trust in the promises that God had just given to him, and therefore not fear Esau any longer, and this is one of the lessons that I can learn from this story, and from this prayer that Jacob is praying.  However I am sure that I do the same things that Jacob does, forgetting that God has given me promises to claim, and just looking at the circumstances around me and then descend to them as if God had not promised them to me at all.

The Word of God has been a large challenge and also very convicting to my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Use the wisdom that God is giving to me from reading His Word, not just know about this wisdom, but act upon it.  Continue to seek contentment from the Lord’s teaching, and continue to ask the Lord to direct my path.