From the time of Abraham, Genesis chapter 12, the pattern of the journey has run throughout Scripture: Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the Israelites... And once the Israelites are settled in their own land, they are driven out to another kind of journey --- exile, and eventually the return to Israel.
I have often thought it worthwhile to deeply study the journey of Jacob. We do not have enough details about Abraham's journey to see what the journey is all about. But in the case of Jacob, we see daily struggles and questions along the way.
When Jacob first flees from the anger of his brother Esau, he meets the God of Israel, the God of his fathers, who tells him: I am the Lord, the God of your fathers Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ...All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you where you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.
Jacob's response to God's revelation was this: If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, then the Lord [Yahweh] will be my God.
Jacob's journey is full of pain and struggles. His father-in-law, Laban, is somewhat of a scoundrel, and Jacob the deceiver learns how painful it is to be deceived himself -- not only in the case of Rachel, but again and again over the next 20 years of deceitfulness on the part of Laban. Through all of his struggles, however, the Spirit of God guides Jacob to victory. In the end, he comes to peace/covenant not only with Laban but with his brother Esau, who had been angry enough to kill him at one point.
God renamed Jacob "Israel" because he had prevailed both with God and with man. Toward the end of his life, Jacob instructs his sons to return to Bethel, where he had first met God, who answered me in my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone (Gen. 35).
In the book of Jeremiah, God says, For I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future... You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, and will bring you back from captivity....and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.
Our lives are journies full of fear, of uncertainty, of "enemies" who prevail over us for a time. But the journey eventually leads us to seek the Lord with all our hearts --- and then we will find Him, the One who makes us prevail with man and with God himself! We will come to know God, as Jacob did, as the One "who answered me in my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone!
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