THE REDEMPTIVE BLESSING

Sometimes God lets you revisit an old story—not to repeat it, but to redeem it.

Hey family!

Many of you have been asking for my playlist because apparently my song selections are FIRE 😂. I got you.

DJ Whit — bringing heaven to the dance floor. Coming soon. Better yet, join us at one of our No Mimosas events and experience it yourself.

Okay, I digress. 😂

There is a moment in the Bible that I have read before, but this time I saw something I couldn’t unsee.

Jacob received a blessing from a father who could barely see.

Years later, Jacob would become the father who could barely see—and would have to give a blessing himself.

The circumstances were almost identical.

But Jacob wasn’t. Let me give you the context.

Before Jacob and Esau were even born, God had already spoken to their mother, Rebekah:

“Two nations are in your womb… And the older shall serve the younger.”

— Genesis 25:23

Before either boy had done anything, God had already revealed that the younger would have prominence over the older.

Jacob did not have to steal God’s plan.

And that’s what makes what happened next so tragic.

What God had already ordained, Jacob and Rebekah tried to secure through human manipulation.

Isaac loved Esau. Rebekah loved Jacob. When Isaac became old and his eyesight failed, he prepared to bless Esau.

Rebekah overheard him and came up with a plan.

Dress Jacob like Esau. Prepare the food Isaac loved.

Cover Jacob’s smooth skin so he would feel like his hairy brother.

Lie to a man who couldn’t see.

And Jacob went along with it.

He walked into his father’s room pretending to be someone he wasn’t and walked out carrying the blessing.

That has always challenged me because you can be headed toward something God ordained and still choose the wrong way to get there.

Side note: Sometimes we become so desperate to secure what God promised that we start trying to help Him.

We manipulate. We force.

We open doors He never told us to touch.

But if God really said it, why do we have to sin to secure it?

The blessing was always going toward Jacob.

The problem wasn’t the promise.

It was the process.

HE HAD THE BLESSING, BUT HE STILL NEEDED TO KNOW GOD

Jacob leaves home carrying the blessing—but running for his life because Esau wants to kill him.

While running, Jacob has his own encounter with God.

He sleeps on a stone beneath his head and dreams of a ladder reaching into heaven, with angels ascending and descending.

When he wakes up, he says:

“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.”

— Genesis 28:16

And I did not know it.

His grandfather Abraham knew God.

His father Isaac knew God.

Jacob grew up surrounded by the covenant.

But you cannot inherit intimacy with God.

Eventually, the God of your parents has to become your God.

Jacob had the blessing, but God still had to mature the man carrying it.

He would spend 20 years with Laban—and ironically, the man who knew how to deceive experienced what it felt like to be deceived.

Those years and afterwards did something to Jacob.

He was humbled.

He was stretched.

He encountered God.

He wrestled with God.

His name changed. Even his walk changed lol

The blessing came in a moment. The maturity to carry it took years.

And then, decades later, Jacob finds himself in a situation that looks strangely familiar.

THE STORY COMES FULL CIRCLE

Jacob is now old.

His eyesight is failing.

Joseph brings his two sons to him:

Manasseh—the firstborn.

Ephraim—the younger.

Jacob is preparing to bless them.

Joseph positions Manasseh where Jacob’s right hand should naturally fall because he is the firstborn.

But Jacob does something unexpected.

He crosses his hands.

His right hand goes onto Ephraim—the younger.

His left goes onto Manasseh—the firstborn.

Joseph sees it and immediately tries to correct him.

No, Dad. You’ve got the wrong one.

But Jacob refuses to move his hands.

“I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he.”

— Genesis 48:19

And that’s when it hit me.

WAIT.

Jacob is old.

His eyesight is failing.

There are two boys in front of him.

One is the firstborn.

One is the younger.

And once again, the greater blessing is going to the younger.

We’ve been here before.

Genesis 27.

Isaac was old. Isaac couldn’t see. Two sons . Blessings.

The younger receiving what everyone expected to go to the older.

Now Genesis 48.

Same theme . Yet again, the younger receives the greater blessing.

But this time there is no deception.

Joseph even tries to physically move Jacob’s hand, and Jacob essentially tells him:

I know exactly what I’m doing.

“I know, my son, I know.”.

THE REDEMPTIVE BLESSING

The young Jacob received a blessing through deception.

The old Jacob passed a blessing through discernment.

Same kind of moment. Different man.

Jacob could never go back and rewrite Genesis 27.

He couldn’t undo what happened with Isaac.

He couldn’t erase Esau’s pain.

Actions have consequences.

But God allowed Jacob to live long enough to stand on the other side of a strikingly similar moment— and this time, he got it right.

That’s why I call it the redemptive blessing.

Sometimes redemption isn’t God deleting the chapter where you failed.

Sometimes redemption is God transforming you so completely that when a familiar test comes around again, the old version of you doesn’t show up.

The old you thought, If I don’t make this happen, I’ll lose it.

The new you knows: If God ordained it, I don’t have to compromise to obtain it.

If Jacob and Rebekah had refused to manipulate the situation, what would God have done?

Would God have stopped Isaac if he tried to bless Esau? No my son the blessing is for Jacob.

We will never know.

Because manipulation entered the story before we got to see how God would handle it.

And maybe that’s another lesson buried in this story:

Sometimes we interfere so quickly that we never get to discover how God intended to fulfill what He promised.

Jacob learned that lesson the hard way.

Decades later, when everyone expected the blessing to go one way, Jacob wasn’t afraid to let it go another.

Because by then, Jacob had lived long enough with God to understand:

God does not need deception to accomplish an unconventional plan.

The order may not make sense.

The choice may surprise people.

The blessing may fall where nobody expected it.

But let God do it His way.

🎶 Music time 🎶

Bryson Gray — “1 John 3” 🔥

This song might upset a few lukewarm Christians 😂 lol, don’t mind me.