This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions and day three of week seven,
which means chapter 33 of the book of Genesis. We've been walking with Jacob,
walking through the bargaining phase and the struggling phase and yesterday the
wrestling phase of his life, and out of those come this fourth phase. I call it
the limping phase.

In chapter 33, we're reminded that in order to receive the blessings that God
longs to give us, God will often need to wrestle with us to a place of
surrender, a place that often we get to only through pain. I wish it was
different. I wish I would see the light without needing to feel the heat, but we
tend to change when we feel the heat, not when we see the light.

There's something about us that needs to go through the pain. We start when
we're kids in order to learn the truth, and it certainly is true in the life of
Jacob. And if it's true in your life, there's nothing wrong with you.

There's just something human with you. God touches Jacob's hip and Jacob begins
to limp, and out of that limp comes what I believe is one of the Bible's most
dramatic moments. In chapter 33, verses one to five, listen to what happens.

Jacob looked up, and there was Esau coming with his 400 men. So he divided the
children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maidservants. He put the maidservants
and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph
in the rear.

He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he
approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. He threw
his arms around his neck and he kissed him, and they wept.

Then Esau looked up and saw the women and the children. "Who are these with you?
" he asked Jacob.

Jacob answered, "They are the children God has graciously given your servant. "
Get the picture here. In these verses, Jacob divides up his family.

You can see some of the unhealthiness even in the way he divided his family,
making sure that the more loved wife and the most loved son was at the very end
so that if the attack happened they would not get hurt. We're going to see what
that results in next week. But then Jacob does something you don't expect a
schemer to do.

He gets out in front. Instead of letting the livestock go first, instead of
letting someone else go first, he gets out in front and he limps to meet his
brother Esau. He bows before his brother Esau, and then he is embraced by his
brother Esau.

This is a picture of Jacob's new life. He limps to meet Esau, a new relationship
with God. He bows before Esau, a new relationship with others, and he is
embraced by Esau, a new result in his relationship, God's blessing.

Jacob's limp, every step of that limp was a reminder of his need for God. So
here's my question of you. What is it in your life that reminds you of your need
for God?

Every step of the way. It may be something physical that's in your life. It was
for the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle Paul talks about a thorn in the flesh, and as he talked to the
Corinthians about this thorn in the flesh, he talked to them about something
that God had used to show him grace, even though he suffered this physical
ailment. What is it that reminds you of your need for God every step of the way?
It may be something inside of you.

I, in my own life, struggle with a sense of inadequacy so often in my life. Now,
I can look back and recognize that growing up in a chaotic home, in a home where
my dad suffered from mental illness, that it played into some of those feelings,
but there's still feelings that are often there. It's an every step reminder of
my need for God.

Do you walk with a limp? Are there weaknesses in your life? Fail points in your
life?

Are there places in your life where you look and wish that wasn't there
physically or wish that hadn't happened in your history? It's a limp in your
life. Recognize that God can use that.

God will use that. God even wants to use that as an every step reminder of your
need for God. Now, does God want us to limp?

Did God want that thing to happen in your past? God does not want sin to happen.
We're going to go to heaven one day where there is no sin, where there is a life
of perfection for all of eternity.

So obviously God's will is not that those things happen, but God's will also is
that he uses even those things, those weaknesses, as an every step reminder of
your need for God. It might be a sense of anxiety that you can't seem to get rid
of. It might be a fear that seems to be at the center of your life.

It's an every step reminder of your need for God. And you can either try to run
from your limp or you can recognize it and rely on God. What happens in Jacob's
life as he goes to meet his brother Esau is very important.

In verse 12, now through verse 20, here is the backside of what happens after he
bows before his brother. Let me read those verses. Then Esau said, "Let us be on
our way.

I'll accompany you. " But Jacob said to him, "My Lord knows that the children
are tender and that I must care for the ewes and the cows that are nursing their
young. If they're driven hard just one day, all the animals will die.

So let my Lord go ahead of his servant while I move along slowly at the pace of
the droves before me and that of the children until I come to my Lord in Sierre.
" Esau said, "Then let me leave some of my men here with you. " "But why do
that?

" Jacob asked. "Just let me find favor in the eyes of my Lord. " So that day
Esau started on his way back to Sierre.

Jacob, however, went to Sakath where he built a place for himself and made
shelters for his livestock. That is why the place is called Sakath. Sakath means
shelters.

After Jacob came from Patan-aram, he arrived safely in the city of Shechem and
Canaan and camped within sight of this city. For a hundred pieces of silver he
bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where
he pitched his tent. There he set up an altar and called it El Elohi Israel.

Here you have in these verses two brothers who have embraced each other but who
still don't entirely trust each other. Forgiveness is instant but trust takes
time to rebuild. These two brothers are never going to really rebuild it.

I pray in your life at points where in your relationships there has been a
brokenness that there will be a forgiveness and then there will be a rebuilding.
We're talking about limping places in our lives. Those places are not about
relationships.

God wants to restore his relationship that you have with him. God wants to
restore the relationships that you have in your life. It's not entirely
dependent on you.

The other person has to say yes to that restoration but if as much as depends on
you, you open the door to that restoration, God often will restore a
relationship. Sometimes he doesn't. He's working to do it.

It's not his fault that it doesn't happen. It's that the other person doesn't
choose for it to happen. When that happens, you just recognize, "God, that's a
place of pain in my life and that's a place where I'm going to choose day by day
to allow it to call me to trust in you.

" We're walking with Jacob through the realities of life. We've been through the
bargaining phase. His whole relationship with God was about, "God, what can you
do for me?

" We've watched the wrestling phase, the struggling phase that went into the
wrestling at the end of that phase where it's all about trying to control his
life on his own and then the limping phase which he's in right now. Out of that
limping phase comes the trusting in Jacob's life. As you look at your life,
where are you right now?

Still bargaining with God? You're struggling right now with God? You're
wrestling with God?

Are there places where you feel like there are limping points in my life? Out of
all of that, are you coming to a place of trusting in him? Lord Jesus, as we
talk to you, we recognize that you are at work in our lives and you're at work
in a greater way than just our circumstances.

You're at work in our hearts. You want to make us new people. You want to make
us people that are fit for eternity.

And so if there is some struggle on this earth, if there are some circumstances
on this earth that Satan has thrown our way, we know that you can use even those
to call us, to cause us to trust even more deeply in you. Help us to learn from
Jacob. Help us to be mindful that, Lord, even in the difficulties of life, we
can, out of those weaknesses, we can choose to allow those to become a reminder
of our need for you every step of the way.

We ask that you do this, Jesus, in your name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're
going to learn together from one of those chapters in the Bible where almost
everyone makes the wrong choice.