In these days at NationsHeart we are looking at the impact of pain and brokenness in our lives - and the effect that has on our faith and our relationships.  Come with us as we go on a journey together - please download sermons from our resources page and have a read of our reflections each week....

The keys to intimacy. If a family turned up at NationsHeart that looked anything like that of Jacob’s (Jacob of Genesis), we would recommend counseling right away. What a mess! Try and follow this tangled web…. Jacob fell in love with Rachel at first sight. Thinking he was marrying her Rachel’s father (Laban) did the old switcheroo – he gave him Leah (the not-so-attractive-one) instead. To close the deal with minimal fallout, he reluctantly handed over Rachel to Jacob a week later. These two wives spend their lives and energy struggling for Jacob’s attention. Leah has several of Jacob’s children to try to gain his love. Rachel, who discovers she can’t have children, aaks her servant Bilhah to have her children to get back at Leah who’s walking around with her nose in the air. Then when Leah isn’t producing children any longer, she brings in her servant Zilpah to get the knife into Rachel once more.

The tensions rise to such a degree among these two women that they began to buy time with Jacob. Isaachar was Leah’s sixth son born to Jacob over a deal for some mandrakes with Rachel! So Jacob fathers 12 children in a home which could only be described with words such a “deceit, trickery, cheating and hatred.” Let me encourage you to read Genesis 30 and 31 to discover more treachery between Laban (father-in-law) and Jacob. These two end up building an altar to God in order to say to each other: “this altar is keeping an eye on you and will get you if you don’t do the right thing!” It’s no wonder that into this context of a family we have the story of Joseph whose brothers sell him into Egyptian slavery and tell Dad that he died an untimely death. It’s exhausting just reading about this family.

But the amazing fact is this – with all of Jacob’s dysfunction, God pursued an intimate relationship with Him. God offers Jacob the keys to an intimate relationship: acceptance, belonging and value. God embraces Jacob; looks past all his faults and loves him unconditionally. God renames this man (from Jacob “deceiver” to Israel “he struggles with God”). God makes Jacob a vital player in history. Why? To show us that this is what God does. This is God’s incredible mercy and love and intimacy at work. What does your family life look like? It doesn’t matter to God, He desires to call you into the most intimate of relationships with Him. He invites you to step into those arms today. Ronaldo