But Jacob comes with a great deal of trepidation. He has amassed great herds of cattle and camels and other material wealth, and God had said to him that the time had now come for him to come back into Canaan.
Jacob is now married to two wives and is the father of eleven children. This incident, found in the 32nd chapter of Genesis, comes at a time when Jacob is coming back into the land of Canaan, having spent some twenty years with his Uncle Laban, in Syria. I hope this prayer will help us to see how these Old Testament characters understood the marvelous relationship they had with God through prayer, and also how they were helped to grow through prayer. We are going to look at a prayer of Jacob's this morning. Jacob's theme song could have been, "I Did It My Way" - the Frank Sinatra of the Old Testament.
(Peter has been described as one who only opened his mouth to change his feet, and I myself have felt very much that way at times.) In the Old Testament, I identify with Jacob, the schemer, the operator, the self-reliant character who always had his own way of doing things. He had a deeply devoted heart for the Lord, yet he always seemed to put the wrong foot forward. I wonder if you sense, as I often do, a close identity with various characters of Scripture? There are two men I particularly feel close to: In the New Testament, I identify with Peter, who had the ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
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