Mountain, Move!

As the news headlines pile discouraging statistics on us heading up to Thanksgiving, and many states warn against family gatherings for a holiday that celebrates familial connection... it's easy to allow the weariness and discouragement overwhelm us. 

We're tired. We're sick of this thing (no pun intended). We want to fight it, but it's the biggest enemy many of us have faced in our lives, and our efforts to stand up to it often seem like throwing water against a sieve. 

I saw someone post on Facebook yesterday that one of the most effective tools in Satan's arsenal is discouragement. I hear that and resonate with it. When your sword-arm is weary, it doesn't matter how the enemy attacks; you can't lift your weapon to press the offense.

Jacob is discouraged, too. In Genesis 31, we find the end of a chapter in Jacob's story. Twenty years have come and gone while he has lived in Haran and worked for his Uncle Laban. I've written about this tension-filled relationship that has suffered some major pitfalls, most notably, when Laban fools Jacob into marrying the wrong daughter, and then, to pile it on, marries off his youngest daughter to the man as well, which set up all sorts of long-term ills that last for generations.

So Laban manipulates and deceives for twenty years at the most (possibly thirteen years, if we want to start the deception timeline at Jacob's first marriage, after he'd worked to 'earn' his marriage to Rachel for seven years). Still thirteen years of struggle is bone-wearying.

I was impressed in the last chapter I covered yesterday that Jacob seems to be setting a new precedent. He has lived a life of deception as well, and as a result, causes turmoil wherever he goes. He seems to turn a corner in Genesis 30:33 when he says: "And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me."

His honesty does testify for him; God greatly increases his flocks and herds and makes him into quite the wealthy man.

But in chapter 31, Jacob falls back into old habits. Laban isn't very nice. He's unfair, he cheats Jacob at every turn, and Jacob is sick of dealing with it. Rather than once again dealing truthfully and honestly with his uncle, Jacob tells his wives, "Pack up everything. We're leaving."

He waits until Laban has gone to shear his sheep. In Genesis 31:20, it says: "Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was running away."

I didn't have time this morning, but I considered going through the Scriptures and finding every word: "deceived" or "lied" or similar in the book of Genesis and seeing how many of them are attributed to Jacob.

Not only is Jacob tired and discouraged from struggling with his uncle, he's tired of trying to be honest when his natural inclination and life history had let him so easily fall back on deception as his primary weapon.

When you get in a routine of mismanagement, it's so difficult to break the wheel. In a way, it's almost like an addiction. 

Full-disclosure: I've got a sweet-tooth the size of the Grand Canyon, and I'm addicted to sugar. I've lost count of the number and variety of diets I've begun, plugged away at for a while... and then dropped. Never intentionally. I never woke up one morning and declared, "My diet's done!" and then went out to the kitchen and ate all the Twinkies in the cupboard (mmm, Twinkies). My wide variety of diets has always failed because of one lapse, and then another, and then another, until I realize... oh, I'm not on a diet anymore. 

Jacob is in a routine of deception, and how easily he falls back into it. Again. And again. And... again. He deceives Laban and runs away with his wives, his children, and all his possessions. 

Laban comes after him, finally catching up to him in the hill country of Gilead, and he demands an explanation. Not because Jacob has left, but because of the manner of his leaving. "You took my daughters and my grandchildren away from me without even letting me say goodbye." You can sense Laban's weariness of the fight here, too. Relations with his son-in-law are strained, and have been for a very long time.

It's both their faults. Neither man is innocent of manipulation and tension. But they're both just... weary of fighting the battle.

Side note here: Rachel is an enigma to me. As an author, I particularly enjoy character development, watching a person grow from one point in their character arc to their finish line... but Rachel, rather than learning from her mistakes, seems to regress. She steals her father's household gods (showing her pagan roots) and takes them along with her, unbeknownst to Jacob. We see a glimpse of that pagan superstitious side of her in the previous chapter when she asks to eat the mandrakes, hoping for conception. Now it's full-blown: she's carrying her father's idols in her camel's saddlebag.

Grand gestures seem to be a cultural phenomenon. When Laban demands to search Jacob's tents and possessions to see if he's stolen those gods, Jacob declares: "If you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live." 

Goodness. Talk about shooting the moon. It's a slight foreshadowing of the story of Jephthah, Israel's judge found in the book of Judges, chapters 11-12, who asks the Lord to help him win a battle and swears to sacrifice the first thing that emerges from his house when he returns in payment. As it turns out, the first thing that emerges from Jephthah's house is his beloved daughter.

Interestingly, Jephthah's battle begins at Mizpah, which is the place where Jacob and Laban are currently meeting.

Jacob nearly loses his favorite wife as a result of his grand gesture. I sometimes wonder if God is just like: Calm down. I got this. I see your heart, but don't go overboard with your words here.

Words. They hold the power of life and death, don't they? 

Jacob and Laban finally settle their differences with words, but they aren't healing words. They aren't blessing words. They're words of weariness and giving up. Words that say: "No more." Jacob and Laban set up a heap of stones and name it Mizpah (which means Watchtower), eat near it, and then make a covenant.

Laban says: "May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. If you mistreat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me."

Looking at the context of the chapter, Laban isn't saying: "Blessings be upon you, my son." He's saying, "God will judge you if you do wrong." He's not saying: "We're parting on good terms here." He's threatening his son-in-law. "I'm tired of retribution, so I'm going to turn over the job to God."

Both men are bone-weary of this mountain against which they've pushed for twenty years. Both men are ready to turn their attention elsewhere, and so they do. When they finish at Mizpah, Laban turns his attention to Haran and home, and Jacob turns his gaze toward Bethel and home. They let their sword arms drop, and they slump away from their personal mountain of struggle.

Hundreds of years later, Jesus cries out in frustration at the tired lack of faith in the people of Israel: "Oh unbelieving and perverse generation! How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" He performs a miracle to teach a lesson, and then He says: "Because you have so little faith, I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20-21).

I wonder what would have happened if Jacob and Laban had laid down their swords in faith... instead of in weariness. If they had made an oath to leave each other in friendship... rather than in tired anger. That mountain that had been twenty years in the building might have budged. It might even have been tossed into the heart of the sea.

When we struggle against discouragement, can we take up the shield of faith, even if it's the size of a mustard seed? Can we push back through the discouragement, the despair, the news headlines that declare another shattered record of Covid cases, that shout more hatred, that detail riots and unrest, that narrate natural disasters and accompanying death tolls?

Can we say to this mountain: "Move! Get out of the way!" Can we declare that the God Who stands before the angel armies... is the same God who fights beside us, lifts our tired arms, and wins our battles if we just let Him lead us?

Can we wearily lay down the weariness, and take up the strength of faith instead?

I pray we can. It's the only way through this.