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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions and week 5, day 4, Genesis 29 today.
Genesis 29, verse 1, we see that Jacob's still on his journey. That verse says,
"Then Jacob continued on his journey, and he came to the land of the eastern
peoples.

" This is a land by the name of Haran. This is the land where his family had
grown up. So he's going back to see his relatives, going back to find a wife,
going back to, well, really three things happen while he's in Haran the next
number of years.

Jacob marries, Jacob has children, and Jacob builds a business. That sounds so
simple, but not in Jacob's life, not in a schemer's life. He marries.

He's going to work seven years for his first wife and then work seven years
again for that same wife. We'll see how that happens soon. He has children, and
in having children, his wives begin to battle for who can have the most
children.

And instead of a blessing, he experiences a battle over the having of children.
And then he starts a business. He's the keeper of flocks.

He's a shepherd. We're going to see the problems in the following days as we
look through next week, particularly as we look through Jacob's life and what
happened with the flocks. You look at Jacob and what's going to happen these
next few days as we read through his story.

Jacob, he serves as a prime example of struggles within a family. His engagement
was a 14-year labor contract. He spent his honeymoon with the wrong woman.

The births in his family were not blessed events, but shots fired in a jealous
war. What happened in Jacob's life? Well, it all begins in Genesis 29, verse 10.

Let me read verses 10 to 13. Well, let me read verses 10 to 30. It's a long
story, but you need to have it in mind.

When Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and Laban's
sheep, he went over and he rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and
he watered his uncle's sheep. And then Jacob kissed Rachel, and he began to weep
aloud. He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of
Rebekah, so she ran and told her father.

As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he hurried to
meet him. He embraced him and he kissed him and he brought him into his home.
And there Jacob told him all these things.

And then Laban said to him, "You are my own flesh and blood. " After Jacob had
stayed with him the whole month, Laban said to him, "Just because you're a
relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages
should be.

" Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of
the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form and
beautiful.

Jacob was in love with Rachel and he said, "I'll work for you seven years in
return for your younger daughter Rachel. " Laban said, "It's better to give her
to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.

" So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few
days to him because of his love for her. And then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me
my wife. My time is completed.

I want to lie with her. " So Laban brought together all the people of the place
and he gave a feast. And when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and he,
wait, he took his daughter Leah and he gave her to Jacob.

And Jacob lay with her. And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter
as her maidservant. When morning came, there was Leah.

So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this that you have done to me? I served you for
Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?

" Laban replied, "It is not our custom to give the younger daughter in marriage
before the older one. Finish this daughter's bridal week. Then we'll give you
the younger one also in return for another seven years of work.

" And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah and then Laban gave him his
daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his
daughter Rachel to be her maidservant.

Jacob lay with Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for
Laban another seven years. Wow, a schemer meets a schemer.

Now let me just say the complexity of the family relationships here, multiple
wives and handmaidens and multiple handmaidens and wives having children.
There's nowhere in the Bible that this is affirmed. In Genesis, the beginning of
Genesis, remember we learned that it's a man and a woman shall cleave to one
another.

The two shall become one, not the three or the five or the four shall become
one. Just the fact that they decided to do this and that God worked in their
lives in spite of it does not mean God is affirming that this is a pattern for
our lives. Marriage is one man and one woman and we see in these verses the
problems that they got into because Jacob married multiple wives and Laban was a
part of those problems.

He was a schemer. He was a better schemer than Jacob was. How do you recognize a
schemer?

There's a lesson here in Jacob's life, a lesson in your marriage, a lesson for
your children, a lesson in work. How do you recognize a schemer? Three things.

They often fall victim to other schemers. People who make up their own schemes,
they think they're so smart, but they're always looking for the angle. So they
often fall victim to other schemers.

They relate well to other people who scheme because they feel the fellowship,
but they also get tricked by other people who scheme. Certainly happened to
Jacob here. Second thing about schemers that you see is they are often trapped
by their own schemes.

Jacob thought he had it all wired. He had it all figured out. This is the
daughter that I want.

He knew that he should have married Leah first, but he found a way. I'm going to
work seven years for her. He found a way to marry the one that he loved, the one
that he wanted first, but he becomes trapped by his own scheme.

And there's a third thing that happens throughout the next few days, chapters
that we're going to read. Third way you recognize a schemer, they often take the
credit that is the Lord's. Whether they're a believer or not, they take God's
credit.

They act as if they're the one who did it instead of God. In these verses, the
deceiver is deceived, and he can say nothing. Laban simply used Jacob's methods,
and so Jacob is left with no appeal.

Now, I said Laban used Jacob's methods. What happens here is confusing to many
of us. We read this and we think, how in the world did he not know that it was
the wrong woman?

Well, remember, they just had a feast. There was a lot of alcohol that was
going, and remember that in that day, women usually wore veils, so he would not
have necessarily seen her face. The combination of those two and a dark night,
he didn't recognize he was with the wrong woman on his honeymoon night, and it
really was the wrong woman.

By all accounts, verse 17, where it says, "Leah had weak eyes. " One translation
of that, just an honest translation, is not weak eyes, but cow eyes. Rachel was
the fresh young ewe lamb.

Leah was the, cow eyes, I guess is the kindest way to say it. One was more
beautiful than the other. That's why Jacob wanted one more than the other.

So he gets fooled, he gets tricked, and he wakes up in the morning and it's the
wrong woman. I wonder, I have to wonder, did Jacob ever start to see himself in
his problems? Do you remember the trick that Jacob played on his father?

He pretended to be the wrong son in order to get the blessing. He stole the
blessing by pretending to be the brother, and here, all of a sudden, here's one
disguising herself as her sister in order to steal the marriage. I wonder if
Jacob ever saw himself in his own problems.

The pain of rejection that happened in Esau's life and Jacob's life. Jacob was
rejected by his father because he preferred Esau. Esau was rejected by his
mother because she preferred Jacob.

And here, here is Jacob rejecting the older sister Leah in order to prefer the
younger. Did Jacob ever see himself in his problems? Did he ever hear God
saying, "Jacob, you don't have to do this.

You don't have to do this. The tricks and the angles, Jacob, you do not have to
try to create for yourself what I want to give you. " Maybe even more important,
the question is, do I ever see myself in my own problems?

Do you ever see yourself in your own problems? It's easy to blame other people,
but so many times, if I'm honest, if I get to a moment of honesty and I look at
my life, I recognize the problems I'm facing in my life, they grow out of who I
am, the way I've responded to life. They're a reflection of the way I've treated
others.

I know there's an old phrase, what goes around comes around. I'm not saying
that. I'm saying that character counts.

I'm saying that our actions are significant. And that many times when I want to
just blame others, the truth of the matter is I'm suffering consequences for my
own actions or for the own gaps in my life. I don't know that Jacob even saw
this.

So we pray, God, give us wisdom to see ourselves sometimes in our own problems.
Give us humility to see ourselves in our own problems. And also give us the
wisdom and humility, God, to hear you saying, "You do not have to try to create
for yourself what I want to give you.

" The story of Jacob and the struggle he goes through on his wedding day, how
you recognize a schemer. It's my story. Because we all have our ways of trying
to control.

We all have our ways of trying to make life work our way. And when we get caught
by it, we all want to blame somebody else. But maybe this is the moment for you
today to forgive and also to see your part.

Let's pray together. Maybe someone schemed against you, cheated you. They're a
laban in your life.

And this is the moment right now where you say, "Jesus Christ, I let it go. I
let it go to you. I forgive them.

I don't want to live the rest of my life in bitterness about what they stole. "
And maybe this is also the moment where you have the courage and the humility to
pray, "Jesus Christ, I recognize that even if it was 99% their fault, there's 1%
me or 10 or 50. " There's me in this problem too.

The way I responded, what I wanted, how I reacted, how I was trying to get for
myself what you wanted to give. I see myself there too, Lord. So in humility, I
forgive.

In humility, I ask you to continue to grow me. Help me to become more like you,
Jesus Christ, every day. And thank you.

Thank you. Thank you that you work in the life of schemers, you work in the life
of people who struggle. You never give up on us.

Thank you, Jesus. In your name. Amen.

Join us tomorrow, our last day of this week. We're going to look at the family
life and the business life of Jacob the Schemer.