We need a Jacob

By Rob Hurtgen

There was a man named Jacob living in a time of famine. Hearing a rumor of food's location, he turned to his sons saying, "Why are you standing around looking at one another? I have heard there is grain in Egypt. Go down there, and buy enough grain to keep us alive. Otherwise we'll die" (Gen. 42:1-2, NLT). Sometimes to get what we need the most, we have to get up, leave where we are, and take hold of what we've been looking for.

Jacob's sons were not oblivious to their problem. They felt its rumble often. Their solution though was to form a committee, study the issue and make a recommendation -- probably to form another committee.

Then Jacob bursts in, "Why do you keep looking at each other for a solution that's not there?"

You need a Jacob. Someone who make you see answers to questions you're not even asking. These brothers did not want to know where they could go and get food. They wanted to know how to eat where they were. Jacob pushed them to think beyond their own paradigm. Beyond their borders.

The brothers were not desperate enough to act. Often, we are like them. We wait until we cannot take things anymore, then we will act. We wait until the doctor says, "If you don't lose weight you will have a heart attack and die." Then we will care for our health. We wait until the credit card companies start to repossess our belongings. Then we start paying off our bills. We wait until we reach a point of desperation before taking any action let alone desperate measures.

But what if we acted now? What if instead of waiting for the point of desperation we acted on the little bits of knowledge we had all the time trusting God who knows everything? Wouldn't that be faith?

Behind the scenes of this story is God who was orchestrating a great family reunion between Jacob, these brothers, and their lost brother Joseph whom they sold into slavery years and years ago. Without Jacob these brothers would have waited, gone hungry, probably died, and perhaps have missed the great reunion God had for them.

There are moments in your life that you may not see the solutions too but you can seize what you understand trusting God to be at work in, around, and through you.