Praying with Jacob 

What do we know about Jacob?

We know that he was an ‘opportunist.’ We are generally critical of ‘opportunists’ in our society.

We know that he had a different relationship to God than did his grandfather, Abraham.

We know that Jacob's identification with God was that of places, events, dreams and visions, and our society today is sometimes hard on folks who believe in dreams…

A caution to those who debunk dreams - God sometimes makes revelations in dreams.

A caution to those folks who believe that if you aren’t getting revelations in dreams that you aren’t as spiritual as they – in the Old Testament God frequently used dreams with people with whom He wasn’t talking face-to-face. Abraham got the ‘face-to-face’ – Jacob got the dreams.

Okay, Jacob did get the dreams…and he might not have understood exactly how it was to work (the barked and speckled branches really didn’t have anything to do with the coloring of the sheep) but at least he was paying attention and doing something to make the dream come true!

We’ve all known dreamers who had big dreams and big ideas, but never did what it took to make anything happen. And we’ve known Christians who, if they would have had Jacob’s dream, would have expected God to put an entire herd in their pasture by the next morning.

God might give you the dream, but He is going to leave it with you to lay the ground work, nurture and grow it! He will make you prosper, if you have a mind to put in the crop.

So, what do we learn from Jacob’s prayers? He prayed – “…Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau…” and then he took from what he had and selected a gift for his brother Esau.

God can prosper you. God can preserve you. God can save you. But you have to be doing something…His gifts expect action on our part!

God dealt with Jacob according to where Jacob was and in keeping with Jacob’s personality.