Jacob, limping out of Peniel, Pt. 3

There are certain memories we hold in our mind as more significant than others, for reasons we often come up with later, as if now we know who we are and can pinpoint exactly what has brought us here. This preciseness is an illusion, for the true pathways of change and transformation are mysterious. I am talking, of course, about my character, my inner man, not the twists and turns that brought me physically to Laban's tents, or the small decisions that found me laboring 14 years among his flocks and left me with two wives and 12 children. Those can be laid out simply, summarized in a few minutes, finding Laban's daughter with her sheep, indenturing myself to him out of love (lust? desire? love is a confusing word because of the self-giving it conveys, something I did not yet understand) for Rachel, his deception, the slow trickle of children, one after the other, that began to emerge, the increase of my flocks, and so forth and so on. All these events culminated in my fleeing from his presence and have brought me here where I am, limping out of Peniel having once again encountered the Fear of my father.

Such were the events of my life. But who can explain my interior life? Who can understand my own heart? Who will tell me of my transformations? Men do not so much change as harden, habits forming and exacerbating over the years the inclinations of the heart. A man is what he is, with no reason to change so long as what he wants he gets, and the slow shifting and deepening that occurs simply make furrows, deeper, deeper, until escape is nearly impossible. This is man, in himself, follower of his heart and desire, a slave to his stomach, in bondage to his flesh (meaning, that like his flesh he moves according to the apprehension of his senses, as a man draws back his hand from flame).

Transformation, what it is it? What can change a man? External circumstances? My circumstances certainly changed, from a solitary man, wandering through the wilds, to a man with two wives waiting in his tents. Children brought more change, as they are prone to do, for though I possessed the servants to care for all my children, yet each one I took for my own and spoke to. Patience is the gift that children give their parents, patience and certain calmness, like the calmness that great responsibility mixed with time can bring (indeed, this I learned was somewhat of the calmness I had sensed from my grandfather, the calmness of years and experienced goodness). But who is to say what effect these things may have on a man?

And what has wrought it? My will? Was I the master of myself, causing in myself the growth I experienced? Was it the events themselves that achieved their result, and so we are to bring glory to the lifeless operations of chance and circumstance? No, listen, listen, listen, I will tell you that if God is God than he has caused all things, and so my change is his glory, or what I experienced belongs to him, and I am displayed before all men as a reminder of his splendor, his power, his great love. I am a man, but I am loved, and if I am loved, then come, children! Experience his love, for if I am loved then surely all he has chosen are loved, and surely his love is yours for the seeking! I am here so that you may have confidence, O children of men, so that you may see that the God of this world is a pursuing God, a God of perseverance, a God of patience, unlimited. He will have you, if he wants you! And if you want him, than come, come, come for if he loved me then none are beyond him!

O Lord, you remember those days too, the days after I left Bethel, when I traveled in awe and fear, full of the memory of that night. The words still rang in my mind, your words of promise, they rang out until I met my cousin and wept on her shoulder. The weeping confused me then, surprised me even, the strength of the emotion that rushed forward. My emotions were always obscure things to me, but I had never been a man to cry, even when I wanted to, for I feared such directness, such exposure. But some constraint had been broken in that day, a change, for when I saw her I cried, I cried because she was my cousin, God had led me, his words were true and the hope of them suddenly stormed forward! Hope is a heartbreaking emotion, because it is a longing, an unknown cry, a sweet bitterness, sweet for what it holds out, but bitter in its distance. I cried for forgotten hope, hope unbidden, not known to me until it arose. The words of God are powerful.

But time passed as well, as the days flowed forward, and memory faded in the inevitable way. I hoped from that day (I now mark it thus) I met God, but the process of it was slow. I remained Jacob, the deceiver, the man compelled to protect and control myself, and though I will say that the day I saw that vision was a significant day, and though I did begin to change, yet I did not, me, in sovereignty over myself, I made no changes, but was changed. I still moved in the deception of my ways, creating the world I longed to be in, blocking out those that moved around me, sowing the seeds of discord and hatred. All lies are founded in hatred, since they conspire to observe and dominate others, and so to lie is to hate, and in my lies I yet despised the world.

Seven years my labors amongst continued, the object of my work always around me. How I longed for her, how I idolized and idealized her! She was a woman, merely, that is to say, not fit to satisfy what were really insatiable desires (insatiable desires can be set only on infinitely satisfying things). I worked for her. She moved my labor, and I did not begrudge a moment of it, in fact, I would have worked longer had Laban demanded it (this is what I mean by it seeming like only a few days, for in my longing the days seemed endless, but in comparison to what I would have agreed to, it was a small sacrifice). Such was the fixation I had on her, Rachel, a woman of beauty, grace, delicacy, intelligence. I was for her what she desired from me, a man to please and win, gathering what I needed to be what she wanted, an unknown to myself, the patterns of change working on two levels, I for her, and God in me, at cross-purposes really. Seven years is a long time, day after day, and we men of the earth are malleable creatures. The construct of my person continued always, even while the deeper work remained unseen. All I knew was that the God I had seen was becoming my love, and I worked contented in that knowledge, imagining his favor, the hope I had intermingled with the longing I had for Rachael (intermingling also with the lust I felt for her, for let us admit that contrary things are always at work in this fallen flesh).

All this crumbled swiftly on that wedding day, when I, deceived by my uncle, took for myself my great love's sister. They say that there is no self-righteousness like a liar accused when for once he speaks truth. In the same way, there is no anger like a deceiver deceived. I was deceiving those around me in countless small ways, hiding from them the angers, failings, fears, hatreds with which my inner man was torn. Yet I imagined myself quite clear of such things, and thus when I woke to find Leah there, not an undesirable woman in herself, but not mine, not my queen and love, I felt such surpassing anger that I was suddenly filled with clarity, a clarity of seeing pretense ripped through. Deception unmasked is an ugly thing, showing the nature of it as supreme self-focus, the ignoring of all other emotions, all other experiences to secure one emotion, one experience. Laban had deceived me, and never again would my deceptions have the savor the once did. The world shown for its falseness could no longer satisfy.

I say it could no longer satisfy. Whose work is this? Do we not all possess insatiable desires? All men create worlds for themselves, all of them! This is the nature of men, and in the crumbling of such worlds we say brokenness consists. But who breaks these worlds? They carry with them, of course, the seeds of their own destruction, but who can cure us of our enamoration with them? My heart is certainly no master over where it goes, going to what it wants when it wants.

And then, more so, who gave me the experience I had? Does not God rule this world? Did he not lead me to Laban? Is his sovereignty not over my long love and deception at Laban's hand? This work in me is the pursuit of God! His hand is power and guided by wisdom, though these considerations alone do not encourage the heart towards him, for the same is said of a general or conqueror. But those words he spoke, always when his power was shown it came with the reminder of his word, his love, his faithfulness, his promise. To receive the promise was to receive his love, and though for those long years I ran, to some degree or another, he pursued.

O Lord, you knew my anger in those days. You knew also the slow crushing of my hope, the slow crumbling of my world. The household was so far from what I had spend seven years constructing in my head, the woman of my heart showing herself, like my heart, full of hidden things. The fractiousness of those sisters, their rivalry, the pettiness of their quarrels, these daily broke away the layers around me. Laban and I were forever separated now by the fire of my resentment and anger. Even as my sons came forth, they provided no solution, though they were a great delight to me, yet I knew something wasn't right, something remained absent.

The pursuer was preparing his final assault.