In the Beginning: A Study in Genesis 27-36Sample

When Do You Need to Sever Ties with Toxic Family Members?

We often allow family members to do and say things that cause us harm that we would never tolerate from anyone else. Sometimes, these family members get healed, repent of their ways, and make it easier to live with them. Other times, toxic family members do not change and leave us the hard choice of continuing in an abusive relationship or moving on and severing ties with them.

After 20 years working for his father-in-law, Laban, Jacob wanted to return home to his mother, Rebekah, and father, Isaac. Laban discovered through demonic divination that it was due to Jacob’s presence that he had become a wealthy and powerful man, which was accurate since God’s covenant blessing followed Jacob. So, Laban, the continually crooked dealmaker, sought to retain Jacob by offering to finally pay him a reasonable salary after 20 years of nearly free but fruitful labor.

Like his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham, Jacob put his faith in God’s plan. Jacob rejected Laban’s offer and entrusted himself to the Lord’s provision alone. God honored Jacob’s faith and made him a very wealthy man. And while it may appear as if Jacob is taking advantage of Laban in this account, the truth is that God is simply righting a wrong and giving him what he had earned during 20 years of faithful work for Laban.

God then spoke to Jacob in 31:3 as he had to his grandfather Abraham in Genesis 12:1, calling him to leave what had been his home for 20 years to return to his family. Jacob responded in faith, for the most part. He loaded up his family and left Laban’s home. He fled secretly without telling Laban, perhaps because he feared that the clever Laban would find a way to dissuade him. Jacob’s wives, Rachel and Leah, apparently have developed some degree of faith in God, as they are willing to leave their own family, just as Rebekah had, because they were ready to live by faith in Him, trusting his blessing.

Laban did not, at first, know that Jacob and his family had left because he was busy in the height of sheep shearing season. When Laban learned that his daughters and grandchildren were gone, he and his relatives pursued Jacob for seven days until they caught up with him. Humorously, the same Laban who tricked Jacob into marrying both of his daughters, became rich because of God’s blessing upon Jacob’s 20 years of labor for him, and cheated Jacob by changing his wages ten times, complained that Jacob had been deceptive with him.

However, God protected Jacob by appearing to Laban, commanding him not to harm Jacob in any way. Laban’s only other charge of wrongdoing against him by Jacob was accusing Jacob of stealing his household god/idol. Jacob was unaware that his beloved wife Rachel had stolen her father’s god and hid it on her camel. Laban searched their belongings, looking for his god to no avail. He asked to search the bags on the camel his daughter Rachel was riding, but she deceived him by cleverly lying that she could not dismount the camel because of her female cycle, thereby using a long-standing excuse that remains perennially popular.

Jacob honored God by attributing all of the blessing he and Laban had received as having come directly from Him. Then Jacob and Laban entered a covenant whereby Jacob agreed to take no more wives than Laban’s two daughters and that he would care for them both. Laban kissed his daughters and grandchildren goodbye as he returned to his home, as did Jacob, which sets the stage for Jacob to see the state of his brother Esau, who had threatened to kill him 20 years ago for stealing his birthright and blessing.

Question:

How can we recognize that God occasionally blesses people just for having a believer in their life?