PUSH UP THE CALENDAR
Genesis 32:3-12
Sin breeds fear. Perfect love makes fear turn tail and flee. If we could be freed of all sense of fear, we’d have new bodies, the physician’s calling would be largely gone; we’d have keener minds, saner judgment, and better-balanced lives. Some day Jesus, in actual control, will turn fear out-of-doors to freeze in the winter blast. And that “some day” may be pushed nearer on our calendars than most of us think.
WINNING BY BENDING
Genesis 33:1-11
Pray, and do your best, and then pray some more, and things will come out right. But “pray” means a strong will bent to the higher will. Jacob’s exquisite tact and studious preparation coupled with dependence on God won Esau’s heart. But it was a new Jacob now, broken-legged and bent-willed, weakened in his own human strength. God could help now. His strength was being made perfect in action through a bended human will.
NINEVEH OR TARSHISH?
Jonah 1:1-17
Every man of us is either in the caravan to Nineveh or on the boat to Tarshish; headed due east, or just the reverse, due west; going God’s way or his own. Which way are you headed? Some of us go to Tarshish religiously. We sing and pray while going our own way and straight across the grain of God’s way for us. Are you traveling by land or water? to Nineveh or Tarshish? God’s way or your own?
GOD’S INSURANCE
Exodus2:11-22
Going God’s way is an insurance policy against accident and violence and death, until one’s life-errand is full done. Doing any other way opens the door to all sorts of danger. Ask the unnamed prophet in 1 Kings 13. A man never need run from danger when doing what he should. Ask the three young men in Daniel 3. The protecting presence of the “Fourth” is unfailing in the path of obedience.
THE LIFE LOST
Genesis 29:1-20
It’s rank folly ever to get out of God’s plan for one’s life. One’s soul may be saved, but his life is lost, and his future next-world seriously affected. When a man insists on his own plan regardless of God’s, the lines tangle, the thorns grow thick, the moral sense dulls. He may pray, but as he insists on his own way, there will be weary toiling and a bitter tang. Jacob knew this with a bitter, biting certainty.
