WordLive - Year OneVoorbeeld

Prepare: ‘Lord, make me what I should be, change me whatever the cost’ (Anthony Bloom).

A battle for blessing
‘There was a man who had two sons’, begins the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11, NIV). Jesus has his finger on the pulse: who wouldn’t want their inheritance now? But how many care about their spiritual inheritance?

Today in the West we have no tradition of inheriting a father’s blessing or being appointed as head of the family. Parents rarely see themselves as role models or spiritual leaders, and their children don’t necessarily respect their wisdom or experience. So the brothers’ battle for the blessing can be hard to understand.

Human weakness
Yet from this unseemly race to impress their failing father, we get an idea of how important such oaths were. Jacob really wants to receive the blessing of prosperity, power and divine promise that Isaac has acquired (and, by implication, the responsibility that goes with it). Esau, however, does not. Despite his outcry (v 34) he’s already given mixed messages about the importance of his family (25:34; 26:34,35).

Rebekah, meanwhile, offstage, seems to be pulling the apron strings. This beautiful, generous woman disappoints us by setting a snare for her unseeing husband. So what do we make of her motives? Did God need her helping hand? The whole scene suggests human weakness, even if it manages, strangely, to achieve the divine purpose.

Respond: Picture your family tree and pray God’s blessing on your relations.

http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-05-11