Genesis 35

Bible Passage:  Genesis 35

Disclaimer: Just for your information, I’d just like to highlight that I had chosen this picture solely for the words in it, and I have no idea why is there a sleeping angel in it though it could just be illustrating the scene of Jacob sleeping but that had already happened in chapter 28, so please ignore it..

And now.. Back to our regularly scheduled program..

Back to Bethel…

The return to the place where God first spoke to Jacob, where He gave him a dream of a ladder to heaven and where he made a vow with relation to having God as his God.

The last time he was there, he made the statement, which Treasureinearthernvessel (a.k.a. *Name withheld*) had highlighted..

If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. – Verses 20-21

This was a statement of conditional faith. Only if God were to fulfill all the above mentioned would He become Jacob’s God. Jacob had not made the Lord, the God of his fathers, his own God. One could say that at that point of time, Jacob’s faith was not complete.

Now let’s skip to the chapter in question. What about now? How do you think his faith was at this point? Had it improved since chapter 28?

Before we try to answer that, let’s go back to Bethel and look at ourselves..

How about us? Have we improved since the day we first started this path of faith? Well.. Ok maybe we didn’t really make any such statement as Jacob did. We probably didn’t think in our hearts, “Oh.. I think He really is God if he does this and does that..”

But just think back to the first time when we ever made any serious or more conscientious thought on building up our faith. Kinda like making a trip back to our own Bethel..

At the beginning, our faith was probably not complete, maybe even conditional like Jacob’s. We did not know how to fully rely on the Lord yet in all that we do or say. Between then and now, we all have most likely made many mistakes in our lives and, many a times, forget to turn to God for help in several situations.

But yet, God had been there all the time, guiding us along the way, leading His dear children along (familiar hymn?). But perhaps.. We still never really “saw” it..

And then one fine day, just like what we read in a couple of chapters ago, we might have encountered our own WWE saga. Of course not really a wrestling match with a Man of God per se, but a significant juncture in our lives that is the defining moment in our faith. Not very sure about ourselves, but I believe at least for Jacob, that bout was a defining moment for him, when he actually called out to God to give him blessings..

And when he returned to Bethel, even though between the wrestling and this point he still made a couple of questionable decisions (Editor’s note: See chapters 33-34), I think we can see a difference in him at least when we compare the two different times he had been in Bethel. And maybe it’s just me, but have you noticed that it is recorded in chapter 35 that he called the place Bethel again in verse 15 (and another time as El Bethel in verse 7) even though he had already done so in chapter 28? Now why do you think that’s so? I’ll leave it to you to think about it..

Faith is something very personal, between our own selves and God. It is up to us how we want to develop in our faith. But if we want to build up our faith in the proper way, to be a follower of Christ, we could heed Paul’s advice..

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more so in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.. – Philippians 2: 12

So.. Let’s ponder again…

Was Jacob’s faith more complete than it was the first time he was in Bethel? I do believe so.

Is our faith more complete than when we first started in our Bethel? Well, only you could answer it for yourself..

For me… It’s..  <Error//blue/-fatal…*white noise*>

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