No Back Up Plan Needed

Genesis 31:29-30 -  I have the power to harm you; but last night the God of your father said to me, ‘Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’  Now you have gone off because you longed to return to your father’s household. But why did you steal my gods?”

Jacob had fled from Paddam Aram without telling his father-in-law. God had blessed him so much that the sons of Laban felt Jacob had taken advantage of their father. Rachel and Leah both agreed that it was a good idea to leave…but Rachel took the household gods with her… outright stealing them from her father.

Laban knew that Jacob’s success was because of the Lord Yahweh.  So he was very confused why Jacob would need his household gods. He pursued them when he discovered them gone…but Rachel hid her theft well…lying about her womanly condition while her father searched her tent….and we are never told why she took them in the first place.

It’s hard to imagine that Rachel would not trust God as her only resource by now…so perhaps the theft was a last effort on her part to hurt the father that had mistreated her husband for twenty years. She might have also thought he would use them as a tool to find where they had gone. One other theory is that she took them as a sort of deed to her father’s property. No matter the reason she took them …her partial trust of God…pushed her mind to create back up plan if God did not come through.

Rachel’s plan did not affect her father finding her family…it just confused her father. Laban watched Jacob depend on God...he knew that all of Jacob’s success was because of the God he believed in.  He was only confused why Jacob would need his gods too.   She did not need this back up plan…God already took care of any danger they might have been in by appearing to him in a dream.

We simply don’t need any back up plans.  Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans he has for us…they are good...they will prosper us….and never harm us. No matter how bad it seems on the surface…God has plans to use it to give us hope for our future. Psalm 46:10 doesn’t say…take whatever action you think is best when you feel overwhelmed…it says….BE STILL…and know that I am God.

Father…thank you for the reminder that you have a future planned for us…and you don’t need any help from our finite minds figuring out how to get there.  Forgive me for the times that I take action instead of sit still and listen for your plan. Help me to learn to stop and listen to your voice when things around me seem to be overwhelming my spirit. Amen.