Precious Stones and Holy Dreams- Genesis 28

Do you ever ask yourself what you will be doing a thousand years from now? For we are all eternal beings, every single one of us.

We all have a story to tell that never ends.

Some of you are blessed so that you can bless others. And some of us are broken so that we can receive.

Today I run with Jacob.

We are learning together that stones are precious things. 

In regards to the anointing of stones, I cannot speak for anyone except myself- and my brother Jacob. You are welcome to join us if you like. Our angels are here with us- you can bring yours, too.

Yet some may see these words I write and say, who is she to speak of holy things?

No, I am not qualified. I am just another girl with a blog. Or so I have heard.

But guess what? Dear World- call me whatever you want, the King calls me Beloved. I AM ENOUGH. (Dear readers, say that with me- it's true for you, too!)

So for those who are always fleeing and never arriving, perhaps you should stop and anoint the very next blessing that you lay your weary head to rest upon.

Anything can happen in this barren place. The desert is a blank slate for God to write the story of the world.

So it’s time for Selah- a divine pause.

Some people say 'stop to smell the flowers'. But what if there are none? 

Some of us are in a desert wilderness, with only dust and dirt and rocks.

We are running away from our regrets with no destination in mind, much too busy to stop and dream or pause to anoint the stones. We run with our tears and our holy oil, clutching stolen promises to our hearts, but we have no idea what to do with them.

And we trip over rocks because we believe God logically, but emotionally we are fleeing blindly. When it comes down to our stony broken hearts, fear has become the justification for control.

We grab our blessing from Him and run like hell.

Problem is, there are angels in this place, within this wilderness, who follow after us and redeem us when we finally stop to rest. These angel guides are anointing our hard hearts with holy hope.

I can’t feel Him, I don’t see them, but when I close my eyes there is a knowing.

It’s the kind of ancient wisdom that you carry not in your head, because it does not live there, but deep in the recesses of your soul.

He is here- they are all here, looking over my shoulder as I write these words.

Hello, my angel guides. I welcome all of you.  Read my story with me.

But first you should know, dear reader, that sometimes I hold the Bible to my heart when I meditate, to join with the broken ones in Scripture who are also striving to produce something good.

Because Jacob and I, we believe a lie in our broken depths, the lie that we are only as good as what we present to the world.  We forget that we are most like our Creator when we are creating, not running.

Perhaps we are creating mosaics of sanctified stones in the desert of our hearts?

We forget that we are loved not because of what we produce, but because of who we are.

We are image bearers who have lost our shining softness. We have become hard as stone.

But God smiles down at us and says, “Be still, my child. It matters not what others say. I say that you are my creation. I say you are beloved. Stop running so I can anoint your stony heart.”

Instead of striving, always straining for more, what if we simply stopped and prayed?

But this is hard, because we are driven to either produce or consume the blessings of others. It’s the programming of our broken heritage.

God just wants us to lay down upon our heavy burdens, so that we can dream.

It’s time for Selah- a divine pause.

We cannot know how deeply we are loved until we stop running, lay still and close our eyes. Only then can we see.

And perhaps this small and insignificant gift of writing that I bring looks like nothing more than a plain, hard stone. Which it was, when I first lay my head down on it to recover. To rebel. To fight. To strive.

But this hard stone, it’s becoming sanctified.

And the angels are all watching in wonder. They gather around and glow with anticipation, pouring holy oil over the daily labor of these work-worn hands.

Did you know you have crowds of angels who follow you everywhere? They are your biggest fans.

They minister to you when you are sad, they celebrate with you when you are happy, they stand with you when you are brave. They follow fast behind you when you run. They anoint you when you become hard.

Jacob and I, we have known what it means to lay down and curl into a ball and try to become like a stone- cold, heavy, lifeless.

When you rightfully run from who you’ve been, without a doubt your demons will pursue. But you cannot stay, because what once served you is now becoming toxic.

What you once loved

is now contaminated with grief,

so it’s time to run away.

Thankfully, your angel guides are running, too.

They read with us here, leaning in closer to see Genesis 28:

⁵ So Isaac sent Jacob away.

This is how this chapter begins- with a hard farewell.

Jacob had a stolen gift- a blessing and a promise, a confiscated inheritance. He took off running with it, because it was not supposed to belong to him. He ran like his life depended on it- which it did. And he didn’t look back.

Jacob was running away from his brother, whom he hurt in order to be blessed.

This is what happened to our world when man rebelled against God- blessings became entangled with curses, fragments of good and bad all mixed together.

“God, what am I doing? Where am I going? What have I done?”

There are at least a few of us out here in the wilderness who ask this question. And I am not alone. I run alongside Jacob, that blessed thief who would someday return to be the leader of his people.

But first he had to cease striving, lay down and surrender to rest. He could not dream until he was completely still in body, mind and soul.

¹⁰ Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. ¹¹ At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. 

How weary do you have to be for a stone to feel comfortable? When your entire self-perception gets turned upside down, even a hard place looks inviting to the rampant mind.

Regret warps our judgement- rocks are mistaken for something soft and light. We turn to comfort from the wrong things.

But it’s OK, that’s normal, so God makes room for this mix-up, and his angels gather around to see what happens next.

And maybe we know

 exactly what we are running from,

 but are not sure

what we are running to.

I’m certain Jacob cried himself to sleep that night. Because when we finally stop running, our emotions catch up to us. That stone was covered with his tears.

Fear, regret, hope, desire. We run away from failure headlong into a dream.

As we lay down in the hard place, God reaches down to raise our thoughts higher, to rise above the sorrow.

¹² As Jacob slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway.

Ah, I told you there were angels here. Close your eyes and see for yourself.

Disturbing wonder is the catalyst

for spiritual awakening.

God saves His best revelations for our worst moments.

When our minds settle down onto rock bottom, God turns that hard place into a foundation for building a new dream in our heart.

13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants.

The first thing we must do while we dream is to look up. Most people go through this life without ever looking up. Even in their dreams, their heads are down.

The hard ground we are quitting on, that is the place of revelation. Everything serves a dual purpose on this journey- it is both a physical act and a poetic metaphor.

And the duality is that our dream is about to become a reality, and the plain hard stones of our past are about to be sanctified and multiplied.

14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.

What do you dream when your head hits the pillow?

Do the desires of your heart look like victory for the entire world?

Raise your thoughts higher- look up.

There is abundance in this place.

The angels gather around you now as you read these words, enraptured with your response.

  ¹⁵ What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”

Ah, but God, it is so hard to believe a promise that we don’t feel deep down in the depth of our being.

 

To believe something as great as that requires a releasing of the lies we comfort ourselves with, the stones that we pretend are pillows.

We are shedding something that is precious because we are growing up.

And as the sun rises, it dawns on us that the ones we are fleeing from are not our enemies at all, but wounded prisoners of war.

16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!”

The first thing we must do before we even open our eyes in the morning is remember our dreams. The ones we have carried in our heart since we were small. If we do this, then when we look around we will be filled with awestruck wonder at the simplest of things- like stones.

And yet, seeing the promises of God is also a bit like looking at a tidal wave which is headed straight for you, right where you stand in the dry desert. His blessings can be daunting and overwhelming.

They will crash over you wave after wave, so it’s best to be prepared. Start small- simply admit you are standing on hard and holy ground.

Name that desert place of dreams- call it Divine.

¹⁷ But he was also afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!”

We have suppressed our emotions for so long that the very rocks within us cry out to be sanctified.

All can be made holy if we allow it.

Remember that angels follow you everywhere, crowds of them, enraptured with your every dream.

How much does God love you- don’t you know? It’s a tidal wave of blessing.

Do not let emotions get in the way of this awakening, rather let them serve it. Seek to know that the Redeemer of stony hearts is the One who loves you forever and always into eternity.

18 The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it.

What if everything we did in the next 24 hours was holy? What if every word and act and thought was sanctified today?

This is the moment for Selah- a divine pause.

Stop running and pick up a stone.

Anoint it, here and now.

Don’t hesitate.

If you don’t have holy oil, simply use your tears. It’s all the same, really.

 ¹⁹ He named that place Bethel (which means “house of God”).

And we will finally admit that rocks make terrible pillows because they bring no comfort at all. Those hard and heavy things we have grown used to, like fear and anger, anxiety and grief.

But when sanctified, these hard and heavy things can become holy relics of surrender.

We will forget our pain when our hands touch the sky in praise.

The house of God is built upon the hard cold stone inside of you, and the cracks in your walls of certainty let the light in.

It’s ok to admit that- the angels understand. They will ascend and descend upon all of it.

20 Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing,21 and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God.

And so we hope to return again to those wounded prisoners of war who we are fleeing from today. We hope to see these stones again. We trust God with the outcome.

What if we surrendered all the heavy things that weigh us down? What if the things in the margins were really the most important pieces to release?

If the hard stones of regret we lay our heads upon can become the foundation for our dreams, then perhaps there is not as much grief as we thought.

To surrender, simply anoint your past with honor and dignity, pouring recognition and compassion upon it. Then leave it behind you, to stand there as a testament of what you once were.

Keep walking, but leave the stones behind. They are all anointed- you can trust that they will be ok. That holy place will still be there when you return someday.

And you will return- although you don’t know when, because that is not part of the dream.

But for now, it’s best to leave the hard things. Bring only the dream which was built upon the bedrock of surrender.

Compartmentalize that which no longer serves you- sanctify the past and lay it down.

Move through the rest of your life trailing the angels of your dreams instead. 

Children remember dreams better than adults, so be childlike when you run to Him.

Now take a moment to say goodbye to the regret of the past. Say goodbye.

Here in the wilderness of meditation, find a stone and sanctify it. Dear reader, what is the stone of regret that you need to leave behind?

 ²² And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.”

The next thing to do is worship- this is the only way to survive now.

Worship like your life depends on it- because it does.

We are all spiritual beings in a physical temple, and worship is an act that brings unity to both sides of our composition, allowing them to work together for the same purpose.

Worship is the integrity of body, mind and soul.

And like Jacob, give at least ten percent of your thoughts to the dream in your heart- that’s a window of opportunity for your angels to gather around.

Be mindful of where you have come from, and never forget the lessons of the holy stones you left behind. Mindfulness brings balance.

The emotions should serve the spirit. Your vision should be supported by them.

Arise and go to Bethel- the house of God. This is not a church I speak of, but a community. A safe place to belong, where you can go to love and be loved, where you can anoint the stones of regret and leave them far behind.

Do you ever ask yourself what you will be doing a thousand years from now? For we are all eternal beings, every one of us. We all have a story to tell that never ends.

And when I read about Jacob I realize that All. The. Things. in our story can be holy.

Even the precious stones beneath our weary head.

The angels are waiting eagerly to see what happens next- they are the readers of your every word.  They are hangers-on of your every surrender.

Because Bethel is our city- our dreams belong in the House of God. Here the hard places beneath our heads will become holy and shining, a testament to our victory.

Yet who am I to speak of holy things? I am not qualified.

I am just another girl with a blog. Or so I have heard.

Call me whatever you want, because my King calls me Beloved. We are all His beloved- say it with me:

I AM ENOUGH.

Please realize that some of you are blessed so that you can bless others. And some of us are broken so that we can receive.

Today I run with Jacob.

We are learning together that stones are holy dreams.

If we are always fleeing and never arriving, we need to stop and anoint the very next blessing that we lay our heavy heads to rest upon.

It’s time for Selah- a divine pause.

And after I am done sanctifying my past,

I will walk away like my brother Jacob,

and I will dream like him, too.

Our angels are trailing close behind us, reading every word of our story.

Do you see them? They are here with us both. They are our biggest fans.

When I walk away from the hard place, I take a whole crowd of angels with me. They understand my victory- they applaud my courage. The stone I leave behind me is sanctified and waiting with honor for my return someday.

Dear reader, today I pray that you will find a moment to close your own eyes, rest your head and dream. And when you wake, anoint the heavy place in your heart and then set it down away from you. Leave your regret behind you for another day, because too much grief is toxic to your soul.

Feel how much lighter you are after surrendering the hard things- you can run so much faster.

Now go, move forward into the rest of your life, trailing the angels of your dreams behind you everywhere you go. Run towards the Creator, the Author of your story.

And may all beings be peaceful and happy.
Amen and amen.

~*~

With deepest gratitude 

for my tiny tribe of readers-

Rebecca

To read Pearls and Presence, click here.

To read my story, click here. 

The Consumption of Crumbs- Genesis 25, 27

We were born into this fight, my brother Esau and I.

I look at the Scriptures and I see how it’s easier to crawl under the table and consume the crumbs than it is to stand and be seen and demand to be blessed in the hard place.

I sit down slowly across from God and I throw my burdens down on the table, all of them, and I point my finger and I demand a reckoning.

This is anger.

We keep giving God the pain of the present moment, but what He also wants are our hurts from the past.

The broken, tender and untouched places that we cover up.

Most anger has roots that go back to our first day on this wounded planet, when we were born into a disadvantage that was never ours to choose.

Ours is always second place, even when we are sure we will come out on top.

We hoard and protect our brokenness because it gives us great power- the power to beg, cry, weep, accuse and cover up our wounds with offense. The power to avoid healing.

Anger disguises our fear of being born into a 

starving world filled with lack.

We barter with our Creator for the crumbs from His table, when really, there is a place set for us right next to Him. But instead we crawl around on our hands and knees, weeping and asking for even a tiny remnant of our brothers’ blessings.

What we need to do is stand up, brush the dust off our knees, take a seat directly across from God, look Him straight in the eye, shake our finger and determine to be blessed in the broken place.  We need to slide our pain across the table and tell Him to take it all back.

He wants us to give our anger to Him, so that He can heal it.

So let’s get up off the ground where we consume the broken crumbs of lost dreams. It is time to toil and labor for a crop of well-worn, hard-learned wisdom.

This week I was reminded that the Bible is a complicated mess.

Confession- I am starting to fall in love with all the broken misfits in Scripture.

So far this year I have walked with Cain, Hagar, and Abraham’s servant. This week I had the privilege of meeting Esau.

His story is delicious.

Esau is one whose brother wronged him, deceived him, and took away the things that should have been his. Esau also made the terrible mistake of showing careless contempt for his own birthright. He threw it all away without realizing.

He was born into a world full of opposition and lies, where love is war.

Love is war.

And the temptation is to hate that brother whose abundance exposes our lack. And we stick around and scheme while desperately consuming the crumbs of others success.

Some of us are like Esau. We cry ““Oh God, give me one blessing to hold onto, just one. That’s all I ask now. Is there anything left of what I thought I wanted in this place? I’m starving.”

See, us God, here on our knees crying for leftovers. Begging for the opportunity that was never ours to have.

We are angry at You, God 

for putting this hunger in our heart.

We inherit the strife of our ancestors, the ones who snuck in through the backdoor of Scripture. The ones who aren’t qualified to be there. The ones who lose everything because of stupid mistakes and revealed unhealed brokenness.

God. These are my people.

And we did not ask for this- it was handed to us from birth. Ours is an inheritance of human flaws and failure. This is unfair.

God. I’m angry.

We demand a reckoning.

But if someone shows you who you really are, 

remember that they are probably right.

I stand in line with all the misfits of Scripture, my beloved messy ancestors. We are a broken race of image-bearers. Our stories are the ones that won’t get a place of honor. These are the stories that nobody wants to share, the ones best left to their own devices.

To lay claim to the lineage of Esau is to be overlooked circumstantially.

This is nobody’s fault, really, except

 the fault of the entire Universe.

And we are afraid to aim our hate at the Almighty Creator.

So instead, we aim it at each other.

And then we weep because we are starving for love.

The seed of these hungry beggar tears is anger. It lays the table for all subsequent events to come. We water this seed as we bide our time here, hoping helplessly for a fresh outpouring of blessing while settling for scraps from around the feet of blind superiors who dine above us.

All the things that made Esau feel small and disadvantaged from birth were handed to him by the Universe without consulting his opinion. He was dropped into his life without any say about his own introduction.

Esau faced insignificance

from his first day on earth.

So pull up a seat and let’s read Esau’s story together now, shall we?

Genesis 25:

“Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer and Rebekah became pregnant with twins. But the two children struggled with each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. ‘Why is this happening to me?’ She asked. And the Lord told her, ‘The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.’ And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins! The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat. So they named him Esau (hair). Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau’s heel. So they named him Jacob (heel/deceiver)."

--v21-26

This is where the struggle begins- Esau is born into a circumstance he did not choose but which chose him, and his world is defined by lack-

there is not enough love to go around.

We are small, unknowing, and so young.

We adapt.

We avoid.

We excuse ourselves from the table and step outside.

“As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter. He was an outdoorsman, but his brother Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home.” v28

We don’t ask questions, we just move through the situation as best we can with what we know so far, which is very little.

We observe the world around us.

“Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.” v28

And though we are children, we are becoming aware that we must either produce or quickly consume whatever crumbs that we can.

We must be the strong one and let others take the seat of honor.

We internalize the pain.

This is a world of lack, and so

we put on a protective mask of apathy.

We become cynical and careless.

We self-sabotage.

“One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry. Esau said to Jacob, ‘I’m starved! Give me some of that red stew!’ ‘All right,’ Jacob replied, ‘but first trade me your rights as the firstborn son.’” ’Look, I’m dying of starvation!’ said Esau. ‘What good is my birthright to me now?’ But Jacob said, ‘First you must swear that your birthright is mine.’ So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal, then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn.” 

--v29-34

And now at the table that the Universe has laid, our insecurities become the centerpiece.

We feast on “it’s complicated”, sticky-sweet dishes that we cannot identify but which wound and defeat us slowly from within, without our conscious awareness. Meals without nourishment.

This is where all Creation serves up harsh reality in abundance.

It is the people closest to Esau that become the greatest teachers of his pain.

“One day when Isaac was old and turning blind, he called for Esau, his older son, and said, ‘My son.’ ‘Yes, Father?’ Esau replied. ‘I am an old man now,’ Isaac said, ‘and I don’t know when I may die. Take your bow and a quiver full of arrows, and go out into the open country to hunt some wild game for me. Prepare my favorite dish, and bring it here for me to eat. Then I will pronounce the blessing that belongs to you, my firstborn son, before I die.'"

--27 v1-4

We leave the table and go outside, where we can often be found, because it’s just easier that way.

We give up our seat of honor, completely unaware of the cost.

“But Rebekah overheard what Isaac had said to his son Esau. So when Esau left to hunt for the wild game, she said to her son Jacob, ‘Listen. I overheard your father say to Esau, "Bring me some wild game and prepare me a delicious meal. Then I will bless you in the Lord’s presence before I die." Now, Jacob, listen to me. Do exactly as I tell you. Go out to the flocks, and bring me two fine young goats. I’ll use them to prepare your father’s favorite dish. Then take the food to your father so he can eat it and bless you before he dies.’” --27 v5-10

And minding our own business, while aiming our arrows at innocent beings in the distance, we’ve no idea that our birthright is being taken from us at that very moment.

Others are in discussion about us behind our backs, determining our fate and preparing our demotion. 

And those who decide our fate, they are blind to reality.

We lift the bow and arrow, narrow our gaze, find the perfect target, and release.

And our inheritance is destroyed while we are away shooting at small game.

“Then she took Esau’s favorite clothes, which were there in the house, and gave them to her younger son, Jacob. She covered his arms and the smooth part of his neck with the skin of the young goats. Then she gave Jacob the delicious meal, including freshly baked bread. So Jacob took the food to his father, ‘
My father?’ he said. 
‘Yes, my son,’ Isaac answered. ‘Who are you- Esau or Jacob?’ 
Jacob replied, ‘It’s Esau, your firstborn son. I’ve done as you told me. Here is the wild game. Now sit up and eat it so you can give me your blessing.’ 
Isaac asked, ‘How did you find it so quickly, my son?’ 
‘The Lord your God put it in my path!’ Jacob replied. 
Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come closer so I can touch you and make sure that you really are Esau.’ 
So Jacob went closer to his father, and Isaac touched him.
'The voice is Jacob’s, but the hands are Esau’s,’ Isaac said. 
But he did not recognize Jacob, [because he was blind]. So Isaac prepared to bless Jacob. 
‘But are you really my son Esau?’ He asked. ‘
Yes, I am,’ Jacob replied.  
And when Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he was finally convinced, and he blessed his son.” 
v15-27

The seed of self-sabotage, planted so long ago before we were even born, has now taken root and grown beyond our control. This is the moment when we reckon with our past, regret our choices, and grasp desperately for our future.

We enter the room totally unaware of what is about to pass. We are proud of what we bring to the table. Our innocence is our undoing.

Our ignorance is about to be consumed.

“As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and almost before Jacob had left his father, Esau returned from his hunt. Esau prepared a delicious meal and brought it to his father. Then he said, ‘Sit up, my father, and eat my wild game so you can give me your blessing.’ But Isaac asked him ‘Who are you’ Esau replied, ‘It’s your son, your firstborn son, Esau.’ Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably and said, ‘Then who just served me wild game? I have already eaten it, and I blessed him just before you came. And yes, that blessing must stand!’” 

v30-33

The blessing is gone forever.

It’s gone.

So we deny the truth.

We still desperately believe that we can change the past.

“When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry. ‘Oh my father, what about me? Bless me, too!’ he begged. But Isaac said, ‘Your brother was here and tricked me. He has taken away your blessing.’ Esau exclaimed, ‘No wonder his name is Jacob (deceiver), for now he has cheated me twice. First he took my rights as the firstborn, and now he has stolen my blessing. Oh, haven’t you saved even one blessing for me?’” 

v36

Oh God, give me one blessing to hold onto, just one. That’s all I ask now- a crumb! Is there anything left for me here? Not even the scraps from the table?

If sheer will-power could erase the regret, all would not be lost.

So we strive against the forces of fallen nature.

“Isaac said to Esau, ‘I have made Jacob your master and have declared that all his brothers will be his servants. I have guaranteed him an abundance of grain and wine- what is left for me to give you, my son?’” v37

Those who have hurt us, they are so very sorry, but it’s not really their fault. After all, they are blind, so it couldn't be helped.

It’s the fault of the Universe-

the loss is circumstantial.

Yet the holy part of us, the piece of our soul that knows it bears the image of the Creator, the royal and divine essence of our being, that voice inside us rises up and demands a reckoning.

Esau pleaded, ‘But do you have only one blessing? Oh my father, bless me, too!’ Then Esau broke down and wept.” v38

We are broken. Oh my God.

We were born into this fight,

my brother Esau and I.

The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is apathy.

To be unseen is the ultimate form of dehumanization.

So we kneel and beg for a remnant. We wait for a handout. We try to give sight to the blind.

But the blessing we receive is not going to be what we hoped for.

"Finally, his father, Isaac, said to him, ‘You will live away from the richness of the earth, and away from the dew of the heaven above. You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother. But when you decide to break free, you will shake his yoke from your neck.’” v39-40

We did not choose this.

We are angry, but we hide our anger from God and give it to our brothers instead.

And anger is the reason we stick around and scheme.

We plot and war against our brothers to cover up our wounds inflicted by the circumstances of the Universe, the wounds inflicted by our own contemptuous choices and masks of apathy.

“From that time on, Esau hated Jacob because their father had given Jacob the blessing. And Esau began to scheme: ‘I will soon be mourning my father’s death. Then I will kill my brother, Jacob.” v41

And so Esau will not see his brother for twenty years. They must part ways for all that time, because forgiveness is a process that cannot be rushed.

Reconciliation is a long hard journey, not a destination.

It takes time, so much time to heal.

Forgiveness takes a lifetime.

So for a long while afterwards we hoard and protect our anger, clutching it to our hearts, because it gives us great power- the power to beg, cry, weep, accuse and cover up our brokenness.

Hatred disguises our fear of being born into a fearful world full of lack.

And it has come to this- we hang around and barter with our superiors for the crumbs from their table.

And they are unseeing, blind to our plight- it is not their fault that they are blind, and they are so very sorry.

But the blessing is gone.

In the grief shall we miss the opportunity that is rising up from the ashes of defeat?

What is this strange poetry that we have been given?

Isaacs’ blessing leaves more than crumbs to grasp upon- there is a richness here, a hard-worn hope that stands out in stark contrast against Esaus’ weeping.

~*~

“You will live away from the richness of the earth, and away from the dew of the heaven above.”

This is the blessing of searching inwards.

First the thoughts will rove through a hard wilderness of denial, keeping far away from either the heights of joy or the depth of hurt.

We will retreat to consider our options. Our thoughts will wander among the remnants of the past. We will need to fight for purpose and meaning, rather than receive them effortlessly. Any nourishing thing we consume in this place will require the hard labor of effort and persistence, endurance and maturity.

~*~

“You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother.”

This is the blessing of love as war.

Our thoughts will be volatile for a time and we will cast blame on others, enslaved to all the stages of grief.

We will need time to grieve- to pass fully through all the stages of sorrow and loss. This cannot be rushed or forced- it must be endured patiently and consciously. We must honor the pain of lost love. We have trusted and been hurt, but we can trust again. But first we must allow ourselves to be angry and grapple with what our anger means. We must face down our demons in order to defeat them. This internal warfare is the eventual path to acceptance, as we begin to face the reality of what cannot be undone.

~*~

“But when you decide to break free, you will shake his yoke from your neck.”

This is the blessing of freedom from offense.

When we forgive, we will victoriously rise above the grief.

The servitude to suffering is temporary, should we choose to do the long hard work and make a conscious change. If we can learn to adapt to the wilderness of regret, learn the discipline of forgiveness, wage warfare against hate, then we can break free from the angry and offended thoughts. But we must get up from where we now crawl around on our hands and knees, weeping and asking for even a tiny remnant of our brother’s blessings. This is the place of letting go.

We must release our pain through forgiveness of self and others.

But how do we know if we have truly forgiven?

Because our view of the world is no longer filtered through the past. We stop striving to change what has already happened. We accept the loss, we dwell in it, we make peace with it.

~*~

Someday we will fully forgive .

This is the blessing we are given now.

~*~

That brother who has wronged Esau, deceived him, taken away the things that should have been his. That brother who took away his blessed future, his very existence now tempts Esau to hate and scheme and strive.

We will someday have the strength and healing necessary to forgive- and therefore we are blessed.

This is the brother whose crumbs of success we are tempted to follow after and consume.

But this brother, the one who hurt us, he has his own story to tell, and it's a perspective to which we ourselves are blind.

The blind cannot lead the blind.

And so we must let him go in order to break free.

Our stories must diverge

in order to heal.

We must accept where we are today without criticism.

We must say goodbye to the past.

I am drawn to the story of Esau because I have inherited his spirit. These are my people, my ancestors, my birthright fathers and mothers- Cain, Hagar, Esau. The broken, doubting and angry ones- those who search for belonging. The outcast, the overlooked, the less-than, the small minions moving the plot along in the hidden background.

We feel so small because our stories go unseen-

but we are not invisible.

Here in Scripture are all the stories nobody else would tell except for God Himself- stories of the unseen, the forgotten, the ones whose thoughts rove through a barren wilderness, engage in warfare with hate and anger, and then break free through the power of forgiveness after a long hard struggle.

God gives me and my people a stage and a microphone, a social media platform and a pulpit, and He is our audience and His presence fills the entire auditorium. He sits in every pew, every chair, takes every seat. He listens intently and reads our every word. He hangs onto every sentence, supporting and encouraging and being present with us as we heal.

He does not abandon us in our time of vulnerability. 
Jesus will never send us away from His table.
He saves a special seat for his beloved.

He loves all of it, especially the uncomfortable chapters of our story that nobody else wants to touch. He is not threatened at all. He is enraptured with our stories- He values them for the treasures they truly are.

He cares deeply and truly about every word we think, write or speak.

And after we are done telling everything we ever needed to say, with a standing ovation and thunderous applause, God puts out a hand, smiles into our eyes and extends the invitation to you and to myself-

"I am so proud of you.

Now give to Me your anger and your pain,

beloved."

Because somewhere inside we must admit- we are angry at Him for our being born into a broken world filled with lack.

And there is nobody to blame, really, except the entire Universe which conspired against us from before the birth of our story.

We were born into this fight, my brother Esau and I.

I look at the Scriptures and see how it’s easier to crawl under the table and consume the crumbs than it is to stand and be seen and demand to be blessed with forgiveness in the hard place.

I want to fight for my blessing of forgiveness in the way Esau did- brazen, broken, desperate, determined and vulnerable.

Somewhere along the line I lost track of which things are

 my fault and which faults belong to others. 

It all gets muddled up in the scraping and striving.

And He asks us, “Give me your anger, child, give it to me. Let me transform it for you. Stop consuming crumbs around the feet of unseeing superiors. Set down your anger, push it across the table and give it all to Me. I want all of it.”

We can consume the broken crumbs of lost dreams or we can get up off the floor to work and labor for a crop of well-worn wisdom.

My friends, today let’s settle down into this wilderness where we have been roving. Let us begin to wage war against the lies we tell ourselves, and begin to break free from pretending the past can be any different than it already is.

When we learn to draw nourishment from the hard place where we dwell here and now, then we will no longer have a taste for the broken crumbs of regret.

And someday we will dine together with those who have hurt us, the broken misfits with embarrassing stories, and those who are blind. We will come together as brothers and sisters who are lacking nothing, bringing an abundance to the feast, because

we are all welcomed

to consume the blessing of forgiveness as equals

around the table of our King.

Cheers, my tiny tribe of readers! A toast to the lifelong journey of reconciliation.

Consume His promises today and be fully satisfied.

May all beings be peaceful and happy. Amen.

~*~

With deepest gratitude for all my readers-

Rebecca

To read Pearls and Presence, click here.

To read my story, click here.