January 14 - Ouch!!

 Read today’s texts first: Genesis 34-36; Luke 14

 MAXIMize YOUR DAY 

A strategic retreat is stepping back into His arms and then moving forward with His protection!

Just when you’ve got the Bible neatly arranged into a tidy bundle of wholesome stories with edifying morals, reality hits you between the eyes, or in this case, between the legs!  After our nice lesson yesterday on the power of agreement drawn from Jacob’s experiences, we learn about broken agreements and treachery today from Jacob’s sons.  Just because Jacob had changed from a deceiver to one who speaks for God, doesn’t mean his family had.  Jacob’s earlier track record of deceit seems like child’s play compared to his sons.

Upset by a Canaanite’s rape of their sister, Dinah, they struck an “agreement” of intermarriage conditional on the men of the city being circumcised (hence the “ouch” title – remember, no anesthesia or sanitized scalpels).  While they were recovering from their surgery, Jacob’s sons attacked.  It was like a shooting gallery with really slow moving targets!  When Jacob heard about this, he knew they had to get out of Dodge quickly, while they could still outrun the men that were left.

What always surprises me is how God can step in to redeem such an impossible situation.  God told Jacob to move his family back to Bethel, “the house of God,” where he had hidden earlier when he was running from Esau.  Here he was, running for his life again, feeling like a failure as a father, when God delivers His most powerful promise yet.  He reminds Jacob that he is now Israel, “one who strives with God and prevails.”  He will prevail and so will his family, with a promised legacy of future generations and nations still to come.

So often we get caught up in our own failures or the failures of our children and think that all hope is gone.  It’s at that moment we must retreat to the house of God, the place of His presence and promise, to regain our perspective.  “Lord, thank You for Your Word.  When reality hits hard and my only response is “ouch!” I can always run to You.  It’s a strategic retreat because one step back into Your arms will propel me much further ahead than I could ever go on my own.”