Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Thursday, July 5, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 63
Scripture: And when they saw Joseph afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him. Genesis 37:18
Note: Until Jacob met Laban, a senior colleague in the murky world of conmanship, he had been accustomed to totally relying on his own mastery, smartness and the tendency to deploy crafty use of guile to supplant his way, overtake others, usurp positions and deceive his way into attaining mastery and upper hand over others in reaching his life goals. Jacob was not concerned about morality, ethics and the destructive implications of his machinations and manoeuvres on others. He wasn’t bothered that he had to literally trample upon the rightful inheritance and position of Esau to attain his desires.
Jacob was an achiever by every standard of the word until he enrolled in the school of Laban, the master tactician. Jacob got himself enrolled in Laban’s school through an act of providence. He was running for his life, away from the vicious anger of Esau, who could only be pacified for his anger by seeing Jacob dead. Running with the speed of a fugitive, Jacob found rest and safety under the roof of Laban. For twenty years he served. Six years were for his share of the cattle. Seven years were supposed to be for Rachel. Instead he was deceived by Laban and suddenly found himself saddled with Leah, having consummated the marriage and forced into another seven years of servitude to get Rachel.
Laban, having had the slate wiped clean on payment for Rachel, after saddling Jacob with a wife he didn’t love, was a satisfied man for pulling that trick on Jacob. The Leah factor was an unsolicited addition to Jacob’s family that introduced a complexity of rivalry he wasn’t prepared for. Laban changed Jacob’s wages ten times during his service, a design intended to disadvantage and impoverish him. Yet, what was designed to destroy and rob Jacob of his rightful lifetime earnings was aborted and altered by the hand of Yahweh, whose unmistakable interventions gave Jacob the upper hand over his master and father in-law.
The purported intentions of the enemy to use Jacob’s weaknesses to destroy him, destroy the relationship between the two wives, destroy his home, destroy his joy as a father and further destroy his children through rivalry, was averted by the hand of God. Jacob made several horrendous errors that were borne out of selfishness, self will and error prone total trust in his own ability to shape his destiny singlehandedly without the God of Abraham and Isaac, received a severe jolt. He had to cry to God to spare his life from Esau. He needed God’s intervention to avoid suffering impoverishment at the hands of Laban. What happened to Joseph, beginning with events in the pit through Potiphar’s home to the prison of Pharaoh, were the manifestations of divine intervention to save Joseph, and hence Israel from destruction.
Food for thought: God’s ways are not the ways of man. Even in our errors and weaknesses, He’s able to use our situation to bring glory to His Name.
Declaration: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
