Vying for Position (Genesis 30-31)

Genesis 30-31

How far would you go to get ahead?  Would you cheat on your exams to ensure your success?  Would you pull down a fellow co-worker so that you would be lifted up?  Would you ensure your position by giving special favors to your boss or swindling your customers?

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Sometimes we think that if we are clever enough or desperate enough, we can take an easier road to success.  Let Jacob's life be a cautionary tale for any who think that this life is filled with any type of peace.

Jacob has lived his life so far as a deceiver.  Now it is permeating every facet of his family.

Rachel and Leah vie for Jacob's love in the bedroom to produce offspring.  Leah purchases his services with her son's mandrakes.  Mandrakes were believed to help in fertility.  Therefore, what we really have is Rachel trying a man made solution to the problem of her infertility.  She believes that she can afford to hire her husband out to her sister, if it will let her get her foot in the door in the childbearing process.  So Jacob is thrown around between wives and their maidservants in a desperate act by all the women to secure his love.

While Jacob is being treated as a male prostitute in his own home, he is busy trying to out-swindle his uncle of his possessions.

It is entertaining to read how Laban and Jacob move and counter-move to gain advantage of one another.  Laban tells Jacob that he can have all of the spotted, speckled and striped goats and every lamb that was black among his flocks.  He then gives all of these that are currently in his flocks to his son (not Jacob), so that Jacob would have a disadvantage in receiving anything concerning the types of livestock promised him.  Jacob then tries to lure the livestock to come down and breed in a certain area with certain food that was believed to cause the livestock to produce the type of characteristics that would be given to Jacob.  If the livestock seemed strong, he would have them breed.  If they seemed weak, he left them for Laban to have.  Laban sees the success of Jacob and with every success changes the rules so that he might have the advantage again.

Eventually, because of Jacob's continued success, Laban becomes bitter and angry toward Jacob.  So angry that Jacob fears that something bad may happen to him if he stays in Laban's company.  This attitude seems confirmed when Jacob receives a dream from God telling him to go back to his homeland.  So he sneaks away, but not before Rachel steals the household gods, which were used to both confer blessing and inheritance.

Laban chases down Jacob and confronts him.  He tries to find the gods but is unsuccessful because of another deceit by Rachel.  And had God not intervened in a dream given to Laban, I truly believe that the lives of Jacob and his family would have ended right there.

Make no mistake, God doesn't protect Jacob because of Jacob's righteousness, but because of His own righteousness.  Jacob, because of his deceit, has stripped away any semblance of peace.  His work is not a pleasant place to be.  His home is not a refuge from conflict.  Because he has trusted in a twisted combination of his own scheming and God's faithfulness, he has received both blessing and cursing for his actions.  In the end, however, the consequences of his actions cause such discord for his family that I'd bet he'd take it all back if he knew what it was going cost.

Is doing things your way instead of God's way worth all the peace you will sacrifice to get what you want?  Personally, I don't think so.