During the month of December, I've been preoccupied with thoughts of my twin brother. His plane went down in the Christmas bombing raids over Vietnam in 1972. From that time until December 4, 2023, he was listed as Missing In Action.
I've expressed it this way before, but the sequential logic is sound. We lost Ronnie at Christmas time in1972. We figuratively got him back at Christmas time in 2023. Because of Christmas, we have eternal hope.
Max Lucado recently published a new book entitled: "God Never Gives Up On You" – The book chronicles the story of Jacob's life and what Jacob's story teaches about Grace, Mercy, And God's Relentless Love.
By the way, Jacob had a twin brother named Esau. They were not identical twins, but under the virtue of their starting life together, shouldn't there have been a bond of love?
It is simple from the outset to conclude Esau didn't always make responsible choices. After all, he traded his birthright to his brother for a bowl of stew. By the same token, Jacob didn't always make responsible choices for the same reason.
Lucado writes of Jacob: "His resume was more like the stuff of the Happy Hour Highball Club than a Sunday School curriculum:
- He married two sisters - but loved only one.
- He was passive while his wives squabbled.
- He slept with the maids.
- His family worshipped foreign gods.
- He chose to do nothing when his sons went Rambo on a village, slaughtering a tribe. The details associated with that episode are minimally R rated. I will steer clear of providing those details.
- His oldest son had an affair with his maid servant.
- His favorite son was sold into slavery by his brothers.
- He spent two decades as a fugitive.
- He was a died-in-wool sneak.
- The guy never preached, prophesied, or said anything worthy of being framed.
- If you are looking for a star in a Hallmark movie, Jacob is not your guy.
If on the other hand, you want to see God's steadfast devotion…
If you need to know how long God will put up with a scoundrel and his scandals…
If you could benefit from a tale of God's unending, unbending, unswerving faithfulness…
If you wonder if God could use a person whose halo has slipped…
Then the story of Jacob is what you need.
When God wanted to identify himself to his people, he declared. "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob".
I don't know about you, but that tugs at my heartstrings.
There were a couple or three reasons, I chose to read the book this past week:
- For starters, I'm walking with a limp. Jacob walked with a limp. Perhaps I'm overidentifying with him? My limp was a result from a fall down the stairs. Jacob's limp was the result of fighting through the night with an adversary.
- Jacob was a twin, the second born twin in his family. Coincidentally, I am a twin, the second born twin in my family.
- I know with certainty that my parents had no idea that they were getting two for the price of one. They had planned to name my brother William Wayne Forrester, Jr. My arrival fifteen minutes after my brother's birth, was a game changer as far as a name was concerned.
Rebekah and Isaac were equally aware that she was carrying twins. "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23)
Though when the two brothers subsequently met face-to-face, accounts of the reunion brought tears to my eyes: "Esau ran to meet him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept," Lucado summed it up like this:
"Esau squeezed him so close Israel nearly lost his breath. Esau released him long enough to look at his face.
The eyes of the twins met for the first time twenty years.
Both sets filled with tears and they wept.
They wept for relief.
They wept for forgiveness.
They wept at the possibility of a new start, a fresh beginning.
Esau wept because his brother was home.
Israel wept because he'd come face-to-face with his past only to find that his past held no power over his life.
God had gone ahead of him. God had kept the promise he made in Bethel: "I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land." [Gen. 28:15]
All My Best!
Don
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