Could This Be Me?
Reading the Bible for hope and inspiration is fine. We sometimes need it to pull us up with a jerk. Try reading this as a story of thoughtlessness.
Jacob never seems to have thought about the consequences of his decision to return home. But is that surprising? Many people decide to go back, or to return to some former place, job, group, church, way of life, totally unaware that going back is never easy and always fraught with risk. The forgotten factor is the thought that in the intervening years things have changed. The person returning is not the person who left. We all change, usually gradually and often without noticing it. The people and the place to which they are returning are not the same either. Ruth and Naomi, returning from Moab, and the Jews returning from Babylon knew all about it, afterwards but probably not before.
In Jacob’s case there were specific factors. Did he never wonder how Esau might feel about his moving back? Apparently not. At least, not until he got near when he decided to test the waters by dispatching others to go and find out and when he hears that Esau is on the way to meet him with ‘an army of 400’ (an unlikely welcoming party) panic sets in and he fears the worst.
Schemer as ever, he decides to sacrifice one group in favour of saving the others and then, for the first time, turns to prayer, but is it more because he fears for his life than because he believes God has an overall plan, and what are we to make of his audacious reminder to God that he is responsible for it all?
Not his greatest moment. Caught in the tension between one half of him which wants to be back where he feels he belongs and the other half which dreads the thought of returning to unresolved problems left behind, he now wants to establish a relationship with God which he has done perilously little to cultivate. No wonder he had a bad night, but anyone who has gone through a similar experience might feel some sympathy for him.
