Grace Of God And Flaws Of MenНамуна

Re-Writing Our Stories 

TV soap operas reveal messy, complicated relationships replete with multiple affairs, dramatic death scenes, and over-the-top emotions.

You don’t expect to see those kinds of plot lines in the Bible.

But, Scripture has plenty of larger-than-life drama, not the least of which is the saga of Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau.

We learn the rather bizarre events that unfold in Isaac’s family. 

It starts off with Isaac favoring his first-born son, Esau, over Jacob. The rivalry between the two brothers begins pretty early – in the womb. And it continues through their growing years. Esau loves hunting and the outdoors, continuing to win his father’s approval. Jacob seems to be a mama’s boy. The animosity grows – like any soap opera, tensions are high and characters almost become caricatures. 

Esau ends up selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. Jacob lives up to his name of “deceiver” and tricks Isaac into blessing him instead of his older brother. Rebecca is on the sidelines, always plotting to get her way. Esau gets highly upset with his younger brother and plots to kill him. 

But God doesn’t wait for them to clean up their act. God had a plan – and, as Scripture says, His plans cannot be thwarted. From the line of Abraham, God had planned to bring forth the Savior of the world. And that was not going to change.

Despite their blatant and grievous flaws, God’s grace toward the three patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - is relentless. So, for 42 generations, from Abraham all the way to Jesus, God’s grace continues to pour out onto this family.

God doesn’t look for perfect people from perfect families. He uses the broken and the flawed so His grace shines through the cracks and the fissures.

God shows us that He can work despite our situation. He is far more committed to our transformation than we are.

God rescues us from the penalty of sin through the substitutionary death of Jesus.

But that’s not all there is to the redemption story.

God is interested in rescuing us from the power of sin. As entrenched and generational as the sin may seem, nothing is impossible for God. 

No matter how dark or convoluted our past, no matter what baggage we carry, God is transforming us, even as we cling to Jesus. He is re-writing our stories.