Jacob and Esau Compete – Genesis 27:1-28:22

We live in a competitive world where we are taught to do whatever it takes to get ahead.  If you’ve seen one of those news stories about competitive parents at children’s sporting events, you know exactly what I’m talking about!  We want the best for ourselves… but we especially want to make sure that our children and grandchildren will be able to fend for themselves… and to attain what’s “rightfully” theirs!

This drive to get ahead goes all the way back to Jacob and Esau.  If you read the account of their birth in Genesis 25, you learn that they even scrapped about who would be the first to take a breath!  And that moment seemed to define the rest of their relationship; a relationship based on competition, trickery, and deceit.

Not every story in Scripture is an example of how we ought to live our lives!  This story is clearly an example of how NOT to live our lives.  We are reminded that God is relational by nature, and He cares about our relationships and how we treat each other.

And yet, as we’ll discover tomorrow, God can even bring about reconciliation in broken situations.

Are there broken relationships in your life?  Are there ways that you have contributed to the brokenness?  What steps can you take toward reconciliation?