Missions Paul

The night before anything could go wrong, God appears. Call it the eleventh hour, God steps in, to a man’s dream who doesn’t even worship Him, with a command – “Don’t touch him”.

God does not shout. He does not send fire. He restrains.

Not all our confrontations will end as neatly as the story we are about to read. There were still words said, and it was still complicated between uncle and nephew, but Jacob would not be harmed.

God still specialises in night-time deliverances. He is working more in our lives than we realise. Conversations are happening about you that you will never hear. There are restraints placed on others that you will never see. Heaven is not passive while you sleep.

^“ On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled. ²³ Taking his relatives with him, he pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁴ Then God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, “Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.” ²⁵ Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead when Laban overtook him, and Laban and his relatives camped there too. ²⁶ Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You’ve deceived me, and you’ve carried off my daughters like captives in war. ²⁷ Why did you run off secretly and deceive me? Why didn’t you tell me, so I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of timbrels and harps? ²⁸ You didn’t even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters goodbye. You have done a foolish thing. ²⁹ I have the power to harm you; but last night the God of your father said to me, ‘Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’ ³⁰ Now you have gone off because you longed to return to your father’s household. But why did you steal my gods?” ³¹ Jacob answered Laban, “I was afraid, because I thought you would take your daughters away from me by force. ³² But if you find anyone who has your gods, that person shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods.” (Genesis 31 v 22-32)

This story shows us that:-

• God has protected you even when you didn’t know it.

Jacob didn’t know about the dream Laban had. He didn’t know that his arch-enemy at that time, out to kill him, had been reined in. There are conversations we have not been party to and interventions that we have never witnessed in our lives, for God is watching over us. How many times has God gone ahead of you? How many conversations has He already entered before you arrived?

There are interventions we have never witnessed. There are disasters we will never know we were spared from. God is watching over us — not only in the visible moments, but in the unseen ones.

• Unresolved relationships generate long-running damage.

Rachel was sitting on a secret, the stolen idols, which would become the main issue and the fact that she had not said goodbye to her father, though it was the reason. A covenant was made in Gilead, but between an uncle and a nephew who do not trust each other. Not every covenant is reconciliation.

God’s nighttime interventions do not just preserve our lives; they preserve His purposes in us. He restrains what would undo us. He exposes what would corrupt us. Where has God protected you without your knowledge?
What “idols” are you quietly carrying into your future?
Is the peace in your life reconciliation or simply distance?

The night before anything could go wrong, God stepped in.

And He still does.

In just 3 short verses, we have stolen gods, a secret escape and a river crossing. Jacob had worked for Laban for over 20 years, so he knew his movements. He knew when he would be out of sight, and it was then that he would make his big move.

“When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods. ²⁰ Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was running away. ²¹ So he fled with all he had, crossed the Euphrates River, and headed for the hill country of Gilead.” (Genesis 31: 19-21)

No one knows why she stole them. Probably small clay gods, small enough to sit on them to try and hide them, which, later, we will read she did. I’ve heard speculative sermons on this, but no one really knows why. The truth is, though, that these figures bring nothing but danger to her and Jacob. Carrying old gods always do.

The text says Jacob deceived Laban. God had told Jacob to go. But an old habit crept in; Jacob felt God needed a hand, so his plan was deceptive.

The Euphrates is not just a river. In the ancient world, it was a boundary — the edge of Mesopotamia, the end of the world Jacob had known. Every step west of it was toward a land he had only heard about in his grandfather’s stories. Canaan.

The crossing of rivers in the Bible is always significant. Here are broken people crossing a river; their characters are not developed enough to enter a new chapter, yet they head that way anyway. They are heading towards a country they cannot imagine.

Under the saddle of Rachel are stolen gods. Jacob has again deceived. They are running away, looking over their shoulders.

Why is God not saying something?

His grace overrides the completion of their sanctification, and aren’t we glad it does? As we cling to idols and old habits, still trying to obey, His grace is critical.

This is not a perfect segue into a new chapter. We might baulk at what we know that Laban didn’t at this moment in time. But perhaps faithfulness sometimes is less about getting everything right and more about simply leaving, being obedient to travel into a new chapter. Yes, it was messy, and perhaps you will pay a price for the way you travelled, but you did travel. We will discover that God will meet Jacob on the other side of the River. God was in the new chapter. This is probably your testimony too, or it will be.

Twenty years in the wrong place. A family built, wealth accumulated, and the blessing of God unmistakable, yet something was shifting. The faces around Jacob had changed. Laban’s sons were muttering. The warmth was gone. And into that tension came a word from God: Go back. Sometimes the most divine thing is not a grand new horizon, it’s a return.

“Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were saying, “Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father.” And Jacob noticed that Laban’s attitude toward him was not what it had been. Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” Genesis‬ ‭31‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ 

Twenty years had gone by and Jacob had married, raised a large family and accumulated great wealth. God had blessed Jacob and yet not everyone saw it that way. The door of opportunity was closing. The signs that things were not right were before him. God sometimes makes us uncomfortable in a place or with people to stir our nest. 

Go back. The command was clear. It was a return to the place where he felt personal disqualification. The deceiving years where Esau was so angry he wanted to kill him. Jacob would return to his past failure. He wouldn’t go on his own, God would be with him. It may not be easy but he wouldn’t be on his own. A promises still applicable for you and me. 

Perhaps a closed door experience is in front of you. Is the situation you are in untenable now. Are you feeling restless? These may be signs that God is repositioning you. 

Maybe there is a ‘home’ where you left 20 years ago, but it could also be a version of yourself, ‘home’ can be many things. 

Jacob had spent 20 years off-grid from the plans God had for him. He was living in the wrong place. It was now time not only to return home but return to the purpose God had for him. God redirects today. Calling His people back to the purposes and places they were made for. 

Trust God, but also use wisdom

This is an unusual passage and one we can skim over quite easily if we’re not careful.

I use the title to summarise what we are reading.

This story should encourage anyone who is working and living under unfair circumstances. The combination of trusting God and being disciplined, practically even in the environment of deception, can mean you thrive.

^“Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. ³⁸ Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, ³⁹ they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. ⁴⁰ Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals. ⁴¹ Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, ⁴² but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. ⁴³ In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.” (Genesis 30 v 37-43)

A reminder that Jacob had agreed to take a disadvantaged wage, it looked like that anyway. The speckled and spotted animals would be his payment.

We will be helped in the next chapter, knowing that God had shown Jacob in a dream that his flock would produce animals with this certain look. Basically, this story tells how God would supernaturally bring increase to him, and he had to have faith. So he selected the stronger animals and intentionally bred them. Faith and wisdom are a great combination, and the stronger animals became his. He became exceedingly prosperous and fulfilled earlier promises.

So what are my takeaways from this passage?

You may be working or living in an unfair situation, but God can prosper you.

You can have faith and have a strategy at the same time. Using your brain is important!

You can make sure the wool isn’t pulled over your eyes – be wise.

I think the important lesson from this story is also that life is often a combination of the promise of God to look after you and patient endurance, whilst you strategically act with the wisdom given to you.

This may be a Laban season for you. This chapter of Jacob’s story could be yours also. Stay honest and faithful. Your integrity will speak for you. You may be working hard, and the terms are changing continually. Perhaps someone is benefiting from your integrity, but in return, they are cheating you? This is the story we are reading today.

 ^“After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland. ²⁶ Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much work I’ve done for you.” ²⁷ , but Laban said to him, “If I have found favour in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.” ²⁸ He added, “Name your wages, and I will pay them.” ²⁹ Jacob said to him, “You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. ³⁰ The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?” ³¹ “What shall I give you?” he asked. “Don’t give me anything,” Jacob replied. “But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: ³² Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-coloured lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. ³³ And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-coloured, will be considered stolen.” ³⁴ “Agreed,” said Laban. “Let it be as you have said.” ³⁵ That same day, he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-coloured lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. ³⁶ Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.” (Genesis 30:25-36)

The time has come for Jacob. Joseph was born. It’s now 14 years since Jacob started working for his uncle Laban. He now believes it is time. He must leave and go back home. Laban knows that God has blessed him because Jacob was with him. “The Lord has blessed me because of you.” He knew it, even though he did not personally have a relationship with God.

Jacob asks what we perhaps don’t expect: the speckled, spotted, and dark-coloured animals will be his, and if any solid-coloured animal appears in his flock, then he can be called a thief.

This is the posture of someone who knows they don’t need to manipulate outcomes.

Laban agrees and then immediately cheats. That same day, he removes all the streaked, spotted, and dark animals from the general flock and puts them three days’ journey away, under the care of his own sons. He strips the gene pool before Jacob can work with it.

Jacob doesn’t erupt. He doesn’t quit. He keeps tending Laban’s flocks. Even though Laban deceives him, Jacob remains in position.

1. Even if people don’t see it or say it, they can see God’s blessing on your life and work. Laban could see God’s work and hand on Jacob even if he didn’t recognise it.
2. Jacob offered a fair proposal in good faith because he trusted God for his life.
3. We leave this stage of the story with Jacob not fully aware of what has taken place. Jacob proposes a deal, Laban accepts it, and then immediately cheats.

Jacob cannot see at this stage what Laban is doing, but God can.

This may be a Laban season for you. Stay honest and faithful.

God sees what’s happening behind your back. God knows the schemes against you. God is already working on your behalf, even when you can’t see it yet.

Stay faithful. Stay honest. God is watching, God is working, and God will vindicate you.

No one’s deception can steal the blessing from your life. What God has purposed for you will come to pass, regardless of who tries to cheat you out of it.

-Today I turn 60-

How did I get to this age so quickly? I blinked, I think. I’m pondering today: the years of joy and struggle have passed so quickly, prayers have been answered (and I’m so grateful to God), and some prayers have dimmed with the silent years.

“Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. ²³ She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” ²⁴ She named him Joseph, and said, “May the Lord add to me another son.” (Genesis 30 v 22-24)

After years of silence, waiting, watching her sister give birth again and again, tears, wondering if God had forgotten her, we read something beautiful.

“Then God remembered Rachel.” It doesn’t mean that God had forgotten Rachel and then, at last, He remembers her. It means the appointed time has come.

God’s timing has rarely matched my own. But looking back, His has always been better.

God had been listening to her. God is not impatient with our asking. He doesn’t grow tired of our repetitious prayers.

Rachel’s barrenness in her world was more than a private grief. It was a public shame. God is not only the healer of our lives but also of the shame attached to our wounds.

She is grateful, but she doesn’t stop there. She continues to be hopeful for the future.

She names him Joseph, which means “may He add.”

Rachel’s posture in the very moment of blessing is to say, “There is more. Lord, add to me”.

So that is my prayer on this birthday too. A prayer that says: You have been faithful for over 60 years. I trust You with whatever comes next. May You add to me. More of Your presence, more of Your purpose, more of the joy of watching You work.

If you are in a season that feels like God has forgotten you, He hasn’t.

If your prayers feel unanswered, they are heard.

If you are carrying shame or disappointment, that is not the end of your story.

Rachel’s story didn’t begin with Joseph. It began with years of aching, praying, and not yet seeing.

Sixty years in, I am more convinced of this than ever: God is faithful. He remembers.

In one of the Bible’s more unusual stories, two sisters negotiate over fertility plants while their shared husband simply goes along with whatever arrangement has been made for him. It is messy and very strange, but at its centre is the presence of God.

^“ During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁵ But she said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?” “Very well,” Rachel said, “he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.” ¹⁶ So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night. ¹⁷ God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. ¹⁸ Then Leah said, “God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.” So she named him Issachar.¹⁹ Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. ²⁰ Then Leah said, “God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honour, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun.²¹ Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.” (Genesis 30 v 14-21)

This peculiar part of the story only makes sense when we know that Mandrakes in the ancient world were associated with fertility and love.

Reuben brings some of these plants to his mum, Leah, who had already given birth to Jacob’s sons but lacked his love and attention.

Rachel, the beloved wife who had not yet given Jacob any children, is desperate and will try any remedy on offer. They were not on offer. Leah’s response was that Rachel had everything; she certainly had the one thing Leah had longed for, Jacob’s love. So will she take her son’s mandrakes too?

What follows is quite bizarre, and surely there must be some more interactions?

Rachel trades a night with Jacob for the mandrakes. It is bizarre, isn’t it? Presumably, this happens not just once but twice more. Leah meets Jacob at the end of his working day and tells him he’s bought a night with him. Jacob perhaps simply shrugs his shoulders and goes along with the transaction. It seems terribly dysfunctional, but v 17 shows that God was involved, “God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant …”

Isn’t that amazing? Read it again. In His listening, God acts, and Leah becomes pregnant again and again, then bears a daughter (at the moment, nothing more is said, and no one would want to predict what would happen to Dinah, even if they could; we will get to that eventually).

Leah, the woman who is unloved, has God’s attention. This is the main point at this time.

In a very messy family story, God is present.

God does not wait for people to have their lives in order before he engages with them. He is there. Leah knows He has seen her and heard her; she is not forgotten. Perhaps this is all that faith really is and what matters.

Leah was watching. She had spent years watching her sister Rachel and watching who Jacob would gaze upon, and she was always second. Her life could be summed up as ‘loved less and seen less’.

“When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. ¹¹ Then Leah said, “What good fortune!”So she named him Gad.¹² Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. ¹³ Then Leah said, “How happy I am! The women will call me happy.” So she named him Asher.” (Genesis 30 v 9-13)

Rachel is still scoring more points with Jacob in her eyes, and so she gives Jacob her servant Zilpah. It really does seem an exhausting competition.

But slow down, something has changed. Leah seems to have changed. She chooses names with thoughts of fortune and happiness in mind.

The weeping unloved woman of many years, who on her wedding night was humiliated, who chose names for her first 2 children to show her misery of not being loved, has changed. The landscape has changed.

Her circumstances haven’t changed; she is still number two in the love table. Her life is still painfully complicated, but she seems not to be focusing on what she lacks. Her first four sons’ names all focused on what she didn’t have. Things are different now. The difference is her perspective on life. She is no longer looking to Jacob for her well-being. Do you see the difference? “The women will call me happy.” Her focus has changed. She has stopped looking to the same people for approval.

Joy doesn’t always arrive when circumstances change. Sometimes it arrives when we change, when we begin to notice what God is doing in the margins of our story, in the places we didn’t expect, through people and gifts we didn’t plan for.

The women would call Leah happy. And perhaps, for the first time in a long time, she was beginning to believe it herself.

We turn now to Rachel, Jacob’s second wife, but the first in his heart. She was struggling to conceive, and what follows is a familiar pattern among the people of God: when waiting becomes unbearable, the temptation is to act.

“When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I’ll die!’ Jacob became angry with her and said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?’ Then she said, ‘Here is Bilhah, my servant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.’ So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Then Rachel said, ‘God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son.’ Because of this she named him Dan.” (Genesis 30:1-6)

Is someone close to you experiencing something you desperately want for yourself? It’s not a pleasant feeling. The gap between what we have and what we long for can feel unbearable when someone else seems to have it so easily.

Rachel hadn’t learned from history. Abraham and Sarah had done the same thing with Hagar, and it hadn’t ended well. Once again, a human solution to a divine timing problem created more pain than it resolved. When the waiting becomes too much, the instinct is always to engineer something, to fill the silence with action. Rachel does exactly that.

What’s striking, though, is what happens at the moment of blessing. Rather than congratulating herself on her clever scheme, Rachel looks up. “God has vindicated me,” she says, the language of a courtroom, of a judge ruling in someone’s favour. It implies she felt she was in a dispute, perhaps with Leah, perhaps even with Jacob, who had suggested the problem lay with God himself. However tangled her methods, her instinct in that moment is to credit grace rather than cleverness. Perhaps that tells us something: even our most impatient reaching can somehow land in God’s hands.

But then a second son is born, and something has shifted.

“Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, ‘I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.’ So she named him Naphtali.” (Genesis 30:7-8)

The language has changed entirely. Where the birth of Dan prompted gratitude to God, the birth of Naphtali prompts something far more earthly, the satisfaction of settling a score. Along the way, Rachel’s longing for a child has quietly curdled into a longing for victory over her sister.

This is how comparison tends to work in us. It rarely stays still. Rachel began in genuine anguish, a woman who simply wanted a child. But somewhere between Dan and Naphtali, that grief reshaped itself into competition. She stopped asking, “Give me this good thing,” and started asking, “Let me have more than her.”

There’s also something poignant about the nature of rivalry here. Rachel declares she has won, but Leah is still there. The marriage is still complicated. The household is still fractured. Winning a round in a rivalry rarely ends it; it usually just raises the stakes for the next one.

The Bible doesn’t tell us Rachel was wrong to feel this way. It simply records her words with quiet honesty and lets the reader sit with the unease because most of us recognise it. The moment we begin to frame someone else’s life as a competition we’ve entered, we’ve already lost something more important than whatever we’re fighting for.

Two sons have been born. And Rachel, for all her gains, still sounds like someone who is losing.