Move On

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

MOVE ON

Gen 30:37-43

37 Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. 38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban's animals. 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. 43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys.

NIV

We do not know how long it took for all the flocks to keep mating so that Jacob’s flock of spotted, speckled, and dark-colored sheep, goats, and looks like included camels and donkeys. We notice that Jacob worked diligently to increase his flocks so he could provide for his family. Had he been deceived by Laban? Yes, but he did not cry over the spilled milk, as it were, he simply went to work to create his own wealth. We know that God was with him, because through him and his son, Judah would Jesus come into the world as one of us, in the form of man. Still, Jacob worked, and we are not told that he sobbed, whimpered, brooded, or became sullen about what happened and how Laban treated him, he just went on doing what he needed to do. We should take our lesson from Jacob's response. Life can bring us many different challenges and how we respond should reflect our trust in God rather than our own self-centered feelings or concerns. Did Laban offend Jacob? Perhaps we could see it as we take being offended by what someone does or says to us. First, we need to ponder on the reason we would feel offended. Could that mean we think too much about ourselves? Could it mean we think we are better than others? Could it mean we think the other person is thoughtless and self-centered, not considering our feelings? It is difficult to put our finger on just the exact cause of our feeling offended, but the question still remains; why do we feel offended? Second, we need to ponder on our response when we feel offended. If we take our cue from Jacob, we simply go right on doing what we need to do, not giving in to our feelings of being mistreated or offended in some way. Life is too short and we have much to do for the kingdom of God to get distracted by the words and actions of others that could be considered an offense against us. We are told to always live with forgiveness because God has forgiven us. In fact, Jesus taught that difficult lesson over forgiveness that if we do not forgive God will not forgive us, but if we do forgive then He forgives us. It would be far better to simply live our lives by faith leaving any offenders forgiven, in fact, to go on loving them. Jacob trusted God, and moved on, doing what he needed to for his family. Perhaps we should trust in God and just move on.