The promise of God’s presence
by David Silvester
These were God’s words spoken to Jacob in a dream as he was running away from home after deceiving his father into giving him the blessing of the first-born, the blessing which was really for his older brother, Esau.
I wonder if we are sometimes aware of God making His promise known to us, and yet there comes a time when we feel, like Jacob, we have messed things up, and it’s all hopeless. We then wonder when and how we might ever get things back into proper order and on to a right footing.
Jacob had managed to get Esau to sell the birthright of the elder son to him (Esau had set no value on this birthright). Then, following that first act of manipulation, Jacob cheated Esau out of the first-born’s blessing from their father. As a result Esau was determined to kill Jacob when the right opportunity arose.
We may not always understand the ways of God, or why He’d chosen Jacob above Esau, but we do know that God’s ways are perfect, and that He has plans for us which are designed for our good (Ephesians 2:10).
God had told Isaac regarding these two sons that from them would be formed two peoples, and that ‘The older will serve the younger’ (Genesis 25:23).
God chooses whomsoever He will in order to fulfil His plan and purpose, and in a similar way Jesus has chosen us along with many others to follow Him (John 15:16).
However inadequate and unsuited we might feel regarding our life and service for the Lord, I believe we can take the words God spoke to Jacob and apply them to ourselves. ‘Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you’ We also can know that God is with us, and He’s working out what He’s planned. The end result God has in view is that we might bear fruit, whereby He will be glorified.
Prayer: Father God, I know that I don’t always understand Your plans and Your ways, but I do understand the promise of Jesus to be with me to the end of the age. Please help me to be aware of that, and enable me to be fruitful in all that You lead me into, I pray, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
David Silvester is married and has a son, two daughters and eight grandchildren. He trained as a production engineer. He then moved on to become a lecturer of engineering craft skills before being called of God in his early fifties to become a pastor of a Baptist church. He says that,"having previously experienced an amazing healing on a day others expected me to die, it came as no surprise that God directed me and my wife, Margaret, to become involved with Ellel Ministries."
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