Making the Difference

The next time you doubt the influence you are having on those around you and the difference you make to the whole spiritual atmosphere in which you live and work, just take a look at the lives of Jacob and his son Joseph.

Jacob had spent many years in service to his uncle Laban, his family had increased and so had the numbers of their livestock. But when he began to feel it might be time to move on he said this: “For what you had before I came was little, and it has increased to a great amount; the LORD has blessed you since my coming.” (Gen 30:30, NKJV)

In fact, just 3 verses earlier, we read that Laban himself had recognised this and had pleaded with Jacob, “Please stay, if I have found favor in your eyes, for I have learned by experience that the LORD has blessed me for your sake.” (Gen 30:27, NKJV)

It is interesting to note that similar comments were made a generation later when Joseph had been bought as a slave by Potipher the Egyptian from the Midianites.“So it was, from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake.” (Gen 39:5, NKJV)

Although their circumstances were very different, the presence of God in Jacob’s and Joseph’s lives was evident and noticed by those around them as it brought Divine favour to the benefit of all.

Ultimately, and in a moment of time, God transformed Joseph’s life of imprisonment with a meteoric rise to the second in command under Pharaoh, and the influence of the Spirit of the Lord through Joseph saved the then known world - including Joseph’s family - from a devastating famine.

In Jacob, the destiny of a nation was at stake. After wrestling with God, his name was changed to Israel and the magnitude of transformation that God wrought in his life radically influenced the generations to come, and thus, the nation of Israel, but also ultimately, all the families of the earth. One man’s life blessed a nation, and through it, the world.

Your circumstances may not be of your choosing, but as you walk in obedience to the Lord He knows the way you take and is ordering your footsteps and His very presence within you blesses others and changes the spiritual atmosphere where you are. God is in the business of transforming us and also those who touch our lives every day and His plans are always far greater than we can ever imagine.