If God had not been with me

Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked you last night." – Genesis 31v42

Jacob knew what it was like to be tricked and deceived. He had enough practice. In dealing with Laban the trickster became the tricked.

Laban came up with an elaborate plan to divide up the livestock. It is far to complicated to go into here, but it involved the colouration of the animals. Laban kept changing the rules and every time he changed the rule Jacob came out on top.

Finally Jacob had enough. We saw yesterday how they had to do what God told them to do. The situation dragged on a little longer and when Laban tried to get them to stay Jacob had the perfect response – ‘If God had not been with me you would have taken everything!’

Jacob now saw the other side of deception. The difference now was the He knew the Lord. He has spent time with Him and Jacob’s life was changed. He now knew that his future was not reliant on his scheming but on the presence of God in his life.

I wonder where we would be if God were not with us? In these challenging times that we are facing I suspect that we too would find ourselves empty handed if God were not with us. No matter what else happens at least we can cling to the eternal hope that we hold in out hands.