You gotta admit that Jacob and kin make the Kardashians look like the Waltons.

Thinking this morning about Jacob’s past as I consider something I read this morning about Jacob’s God. And to be honest, it can be a bit of a head-scratcher to think about the family God had chosen to bless all the nations of the earth.

Read Genesis 25 through 31 and tell me, if they were around today, that there wouldn’t be some network out there ready to pick up Jacob’s family for a reality TV show.

Let’s start with Jacob scamming the birthright from his brother, Esau. Though God had told Jacob’s dad, Isaac, that Jacob was going to be the child of promise, Isaac still determines to give his blessing to Esau — mostly because he likes Esau’s cooking. So then, mom, Rebekah, gets in on the act. And in her we can we see which gene pool fed Jacob’s scheming tendencies. Rebekah masterminds a plot for Jacob to secure the blessing that God had already promised would be his, a ruse involving her best cooking and Esau’s best clothes. But to make it all work, Jacob needs to out and out lie to his father to get the blessing. When Esau finally shows up with his food and finds out the blessing’s already been blessed to his brother, he’s so ticked that he starts to plot his brother’s murder. Rebekah gets wind of Esau’s nefarious intentions and tells Jacob to run. And Jacob does. To Rebekah’s brother’s place. Jacob runs off to Uncle Laban’s place where he starts working for his uncle, falls in love with his cousin, Rachel, and in the spirit of true love, works 7 years for her hand in marriage. Happy ending? Nah!

‘Cause Laban is so obviously Rebekah’s brother. He’s so cut from the same cloth.

After the “I do’s”, Laban secretly slips the older sister, Leah, into the marriage bed intended for Jacob and Rachel’s wedding night — now Leah’s Jacob’s wife. But Jacob says he’ll work another seven years for Rachel. So, Jacob ends up with the two sisters, along with their handmaids, for what will become a kind of mini harem. But inter-family feuding soon begins. The sisters, each wanting to be Jacob’s “favorite”, figure they can secure top spot if they provide him with children . . . like, lots of children. So, they start swapping themselves, and their handmaids, in and out of the marriage bed and Jacob ends up fathering a dozen kids by four women. Weird! Right?

While growing his family, Jacob is also building up his flocks beside Laban’s. He eventually, though, finds himself needing to leave quickly as his prosperity is generating resentment from Laban’s other kids. And so, Jacob and his two wives and their two handmaids and their myriad of kids and their ton of livestock take off. But, just for good measure, and to make sure she gets all that she thinks she’s due, Rachel decides to steal the family idols from her dad’s place before they leave. Oh, brother!

And then, you guessed it, Laban comes after them and confronts Jacob about his rapid exit and the stolen idols.

Behold, God’s chosen family!

But, if you look past the dysfunction of the family, you see the faithfulness of God. Through all this craziness, while working His purposes, God is also working in Jacob. The independent, self-made schemer realizes, more and more, that the God he met at Bethel has been the God who has watched over him, protected him, and prospered him while he has lived next to Laban. And one of the clearest indications of this, for me, is something Jacob says when confronted by his father-in-law.

“These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”

(Genesis 31:41-42 ESV)

On my side. That, says Jacob, is what has made the difference through all the dysfunction.

Jacob, the independent deceiver, is being transformed into Jacob the indebted worshiper. Jacob, the self-made man, is recognizing that he is Jacob, the God-protected man. Jacob, the haughty, is becoming Jacob the humble. And that, because God was on his side.

God, in His patient and purposeful steadfast love, works amidst all the craziness to complete the work He has begun in Jacob that He might fulfill the purposes He had determined through Jacob (Gen. 28:13-15). Thus, says, Jacob, “The Fear of Isaac was on my side.”

Behold our God. The one on our side, too (Php. 1:6).

Not because we have our acts together, but because we don’t. Not because we’re so ultra competent and cooperative all the time, but because, so often, we are not.

How come? To show us that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness and that, like Jacob, it’s when we are weak, that we are strong (2Cor. 12:9-10).

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus . . .

(1Corinthians 1:26-30a ESV)

On my side . . .

Only because of His amazing grace. Only for His always deserving glory.