After reading Genesis 30 and praying this morning, I couldn’t help but think about the incredible images we are seeing from the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope. As beautiful as the images we could not imagine without their aid are, my favorite image is of our beautiful planet suspended in inky darkness with only half of the planet in light visible.

Reading about Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, Zilpah – we are provided a glimpse into their homes, their lives, their desires, machinations, envy. Would our home lives withstand such scrutiny? For all of their all-too-human emotions and actions, God was there. The blessings He promised Abraham, then Isaac, and now Jacob were being played out in their respective lives. Isaac was the promised child of blessing; Jacob was the inheritor of the blessings; Jacob’s 12 sons will become the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel. You can almost feel the steady roll of history unfolding to our time today and beyond.

When I watch the news in the world today, I quickly become undone. I live in the year 2022 and the events of Genesis happened so very long ago. How can my modern life resonate with the lives they led? The blessings and trappings of our modern world would be unfathomable to Jacob but I bet he would feel right at home in the human emotions we see today.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. Jude 24, 25.

I love that…before all ages, now and forevermore…He reminds me no matter how bleak the human heart may appear, we are not lost…we are loved. He is with us just as surely as He was with all the people we read about in our Bible and that speaks of incredible love, patience, dedication. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8:3-4.

I wait in hope for God’s love to fill this earth, His holiness to sweep away the darkness that is like toxic soup drowning us without us even knowing…but He knows. He has seen it all.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.