How Long Will You Work for What God Has Promised?!

One of my goals is to read the Bible in a year. In doing this I am reading.in Genesis. Today I read the stories of Jacob and how he built his family. [Chapters 28-31] I remember the last time I read those stories and thinking his father-in-law cheated him multiple times! This time it was something else that stuck out to me.

In verse 41 of chapter 31 Jacob says "It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times." If you just rake that as face value then all that stands out is dude got his wages changed a lot.

Don't forget what God sent him there for, to get a wife. All Jacob was supposed to go do was get a wife and bring her back to the place of his father. In his mind I'm.sure he's thinking like a week or 2 weeks tops! Instead he ended up raising his family there.

I wonder how many of us have been in a place, are in a place or is about to be in a place like that. A place where God says go here and do this and we are picturing it taking "X" amount of time, when really the place God is sending us to will take 20 years of hard work...

You see Jacob didn't just go and hang out for 20 years, he worked his tail end off! And was cheated multiple times out of what he was told he was going to receive. You know he had to have thought more than once 'what have I gotten myself in to?!' But he kept on, there is no record of him getting upset with God because it was taking too long or he was being cheated. He just kept on working and God gave to him what was his.

Are you in that place right now?! You're in that place of obeying God and listening to his commands, staying strong and enduring. Doing it all because of a promise he gave to you once. That promise might have been given a few months ago or a year. Maybe even 20 + years ago. How long will you wait for God? Will you choose to endure until the end?! Remember the promise! Genesis 28:15 God promises Jacob, and you and I, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

Abide in that today!

~Awaken Us~
Brenna Stanford