Vayetze | ויצא | "He went out "
Gen 28:10-32:3
This week’s parasha begins with Yaakov’s departure from his
home in Beersheba to Haran as stated in Gen 28:10. “Yaakov departed from Beer-sheba and went to Haran
Yaakov is
consider to be one of the three major patriarchs and one would suspect to hear
of how he models the attributes of kindness, righteousness and justice, but
really most of what we’re told of him are somewhat not all godly traits. The
Torah in Genesis even gives Yaakov a total of 25 chapters, more than any other patriarch. But most of what we
hear from him is deceitfulness and mischief acts that haunt him most of his
lifetime. Truly one would not want to follow after his early examples to be a
way of getting closer to God. Yet we see the providence of God working in all these
trials of Yaakov, to have God
himself work out the details for His purpose and to receive the glory. Yaakov’s name means “crookedness” or
“slanted” it’s given to him at the day of his birth when he came out holding
his twin brother’s heal. So right from the start Yaakov has a rough start, Deceitfulness is not
the theme that God would want us to learn, but what is it then? I believe that
Elohim wants us to see that even deceitfulness actions can be restored to God’s
will. Humanity itself has had a rough start by sinning against our creator; we
are no different in the way that we constantly sin and go through trials and
testing, it’s then when we see God working to conform us more unto His image.
The Brit
Chadeshah tells us “Consider it pure joy, my
brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces
perseverance. Let perseverance
finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”
Yaakov 1:2-4. An old time preacher named Oswald Chamber said “Faith by
its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not
that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven
as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must
experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with
the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial
of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches
it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him— a faith
that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The
highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is— “Though He
slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
The bigger picture in Yaakov’s challenges that we can learn is to understand
that when we deal in an ungodly way, theirs consequences that we’ll reap. God
has us confront the same situation in our lives that we deal with others, so we
can know how wrong it is and turn away from it.
Tribulations and trials that we see in Yaakov’s life would
be God’s way of showing us how to remove any blemish or to
develop our faith in trusting God the way that we should. May this be a lesson
for us to know that we are to trust God with all of our dealings that will develop
our faith! Not all things seem to be good, but we need to trust in the one who
is good, to work out even those bad things for His purpose. We are to never
give up, but continue to push forward by seeing the example of one of the great
patriarch Yaakov.
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