Patience

In the twenty years I've worked for you, ewes and she-goats never miscarried. I never feasted on the rams from your flock. I never brought you a torn carcass killed by wild animals but that I paid for it out of my own pocket—actually, you made me pay whether it was my fault or not. I was out in all kinds of weather, from torrid heat to freezing cold, putting in many a sleepless night. For twenty years I've done this: I slaved away fourteen years for your two daughters and another six years for your flock and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not stuck with me, you would have sent me off penniless. But God saw the fix I was in and how hard I had worked and last night rendered his verdict.-
Gen 31:38-42

When Jacob eventually moved to Egypt and met with Pharaoh, he was asked how old he was and here's his answer:
The years of my sojourning are 130—a short and hard life..

While he managed to 'steal' Esau's blessing, his life had not been easier surprisingly.
Though God promised to be with him.. he still had to endure years of hard work and suffering working for Laban.

His eventual success was a product of patience and faith.
Has he experienced miracle? Undoubtedly.
Was he greatly blessed? Definitely.
Has it been an instant, accelerated, shortcut kind of breakthrough? Not really.

His patience was tested times and again but Jacob knows two things
- God saw the fix he was in,
- and God saw his hard work.
and he knows God would stuck with him.

Rather than 'claiming' and 'demanding' for 'miracle', I pray that we would learn to have Jacob's patience in waiting upon the Lord.

And may our hope rests not on the fact that 'miracle still exist', but on the truth that God of Jacob.. is for us.