Category: Faith in the Struggle

This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, to do harm. . . and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called his kinsmen to eat bread.…
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These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now…
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Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods; what have you found of all your household goods?” Genesis 31:36-37  It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble.…
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Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father’s household gods. Genesis 31:19 Recently, at our jail Bible study, one of the guys mentioned the source of an ongoing conflict – a plastic bowl. The inmates have access to a vending machine with microwavable rice and noodles, but to cook anything in…
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Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him . . . “Whatever God has said to you, do.” Genesis 31:14-16 A couple of years ago, when approached about working in jail medicine, I was hesitant. I had a good job, and this new job represented a financial step backwards. It was a unique opportunity…
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Then the LORD said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.” Genesis 31:3 My son flew in yesterday for his Thanksgiving break from college. We live a couple of hours from the airport though, so earlier in the week, I had to make…
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Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys. Genesis 30:43 I grew up in a conservative country church, where we simply didn’t dance or go to dances. Then, I saw Footloose, in which the hero of the story used a Bible passage about King David’s…
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But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. Genesis 30:35 In my addiction, I used my prescribing power…
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And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.”  Genesis 30:19 How did I become addicted? It’s not something I planned on, of course. I simply followed my appetite.…
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Then Rachel said, “With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed.” Genesis 30:8 My wife and I have come a long way since the disaster of my addiction, but that doesn’t mean we do marriage perfectly. We still have our moments when we bicker over stupid stuff, and once we both…
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