Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

song of the phoenix

Hindarkan aku dari murkaMu ya Allah, sembunyikan aku dari geramMu yang menyala-nyala sesungguhnya dalam kesalahan aku dikandung, dan dalam pelanggaran aku diperanakkan, dan dengan dosa aku bergumul sepanjang hariku tulang-tulangku serasa remuk oleh gentar, dan hatiku sungguh hancur mengingat dukaMu jangan palingkan wajahMu ya Allah, jangan biarkan rohMu yang kudus beranjak dariku siapakah aku ya Tuhan, hingga layak akan belas kasihMu namun itu yang kupinta, kuberanikan meminta, maka dengarlah jeritku ya gunung batuku sekali lagi, ulurkan tangan kanan Mu angkatlah aku dari debu dan abu sekali lagi, hembuskan nafas hidup Mu bangkitkan aku dari jurang maut Hades nyalakan sekali lagi, api kudus Mu yang menghanguskan noda cela ku sampai habis biar sekali lagi bibir ini layak berkata, terpujilah Engkau ya Allah ku yang hidup *dari chapter 'daud dan batsyeba'
2 comments
Read more

Good things

Good things happen recently ^^ Not so much for me though lol. Well, my NUS fren got engaged last week. She has been with her boyfriend for quite a while. Both are genius.. congratz2... Then yesterday was the most shocking one... coz I always thought all was just jokes.. congratz to the two FA frens of me. Surely love works in the most unpredictable ways. Of course the previous couple from FA was also shocking to me for different reason haha. Anyway, glad to see them happy. I dunno if Friday's dinner is gonna be good thing but I know that this is really going nowhere. Sigh.. so it seems that we are going nowhere while the others have moved on. Anyway, was having a great FA session last night. Eve shared on how God used her the night before to help cast out demons for her friend. So she was sleeping over her friend's house, they were chatting till almost 3 AM and then the topic became serious and her friend wanted to be set free from the devil spirit inside her. At first Eve was ...
1 comment
Read more

Ichi Rittoru no Namida

As Aya's condition gradually worsen, she could no longer walk or stand anymore. She would sometimes choke when she eat and she struggled to speak. There was only one thing that she could do, albeit which much difficulty. She could still write. One day her mum visited her at the hospital and seeing her struggling hard to write her diary, her mum asked her to rest. But she said.. "Okaasan.. you said that I can still write right? That's the only thing that I could still do. I have to write what I have in mind now because that is the only prove that I am living today." Even when she could hardly hold her crayon, she would still write her diary. I do not know whether the movie followed the true diary content but in the movie.. Despite the diary began with her questioning why she had to be the one to suffer from this cruel disease, it sweetly ended with a word: "Arigatou". Thanking her parents and siblings for being there right to the end, thanking her friends for...
2 comments
Read more