the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 1 of 5
Genesis 32:1-21
Hebrews 1:14 teaches us that believers benefit from angels’ ministry, usually without knowing it. But when Jacob left Canaan, God had wanted somehow to introduce him to those whom He was going to use to take care of him while he was in exile (Genesis 28:12). Now, at the time he is going back, the angels of Mahanaim welcome the patriarch into the promised land. But Jacob is not in any condition to rejoice in the goodness of the God who listened to his vow long before (Genesis 28:20-21). Indeed his heart is not free of the fear of man. If he no longer has Laban behind him, he still has Esau in front of him and he trembles at the prospect of meeting him. He certainly has recourse to prayer (vv. 9-12) but, immediately after, he takes all the precautions one can imagine as if he did not really believe God was capable of delivering him. Do we not resemble him sometimes? Note also Jacob’s servile attitude (vv. 18, 20), even though his father’s blessing had made him to be above his brother. Do you not think that instead of all this stagecraft, all these discreet arrangements, Jacob would have been better to go to the front of his people and, trusting in God, to ask courageously for pardon from his brother whom he had wronged.
