 This wall surrounds about an acre of beautifully tended garden at the Bunratty Castle grounds. At first, I thought the flowers in the center were sprouting from a wall-mounted planter. But no. The dusty red flowers are the product of an ostentatiously tenacious plant jutting out of the old stone wall. An unplanned and unexpected beauty.
I wouldn't have, but maybe the gardener knew this when they left the green shrub alone. I would have thought: "Weed." Maybe they saw: "Flower." Often, I think we see the people, circumstances, and internal struggles in our lives and think, "Blight." But we forget our Gardener, God, knows it all and leaves these things in our lives for the future blossoms they will bring. Because sometimes the most beautiful flowers grow from the most unanticipated places. I think I may be getting wiser because I can now laugh at my foolishness. A song came across my feed recently with the main lyrics being: "Leave her, Johnny, leave her." I was irked. A song encouraging men to leave their wives! I couldn't get to the app to change the song at that moment -- but if I could have, I would have turned it off. Of course, this failure indicated to the computer that I liked the song and wanted to hear it...multiple times. But in hearing it multiple times, I grasped the context. It was a sailing song...and the "she" was a ship...that was sinking (or maybe docked in its final port...hard to say for a land lubber). I laughed -- yes, Johnny, please leave her. The course that was repeated and catchy -- couldn't give you what you needed to understand the song. And some of the verses weren't clear either. You had to listen to the whole song...just like the Bible. You can't understand the riches of the New Testament apart from the promises (and the struggles) of the Old Testament. It benefits our study of any portion of Scripture to know the rest of God's Word, and apply it to the passage we are reading, thus synthesizing everything God is saying. Otherwise, you think a sailor avoiding a watery grave is a man in a bar abandoning his wife!  In Genesis 32:9-12, Jacob asks God for deliverance. Only it came through the unwanted. Who knows, maybe the Man and Jacob were fighting on how to approach Esau? But there is little doubt that Jacob didn’t intend to meet his brother limping and in pain – but that is what his encounter with God caused. At first glance, this was a disaster. But...how much easier do you think it was for Jacob to treat his brother with deference after he was so humbled by God? How much simpler to now ask for peace because he has no physical strength for anything else? Did the words praising his brother and begging forgiveness come more quickly because he knew had resisted the LORD all night and God had responded to him with patience? Maybe. Just maybe.   It was bad – Jacob has no retreat, no refuge, and a hostile brother over the river. He’s exhausted his options, and he’s about to be exhausted physically too – he just doesn’t know it.
He is utterly alone physically, and he's carrying it all on his shoulders. Everything he wants to protect is out of reach. All he fears losing he is separated from. All he has left is his strength – and God, in His goodness, is going to take that too. In God’s goodness. All God does – in this chapter and beyond – is in His goodness. |
The AuthorCome with me as we grow in fellowship with each other and our Savior to whom belongs the Amazing Escape from sin and death and the Amazing Journey into glorious life. Archives
August 2026
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