Knowing God When I’m at a Fork in the Road

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday, I finished the First steps with Jesus Bible plan on YouVersion and I immediately wanted to start a new Bible reading plan. I looked through the most recently added plans and found one called: Hey God, Can We Talk? I’m at a Fork in the Road. I clicked on it and apparently loved its description, although I can’t remember it right now. So I decided to start the plan.

The plan walks us through Jacob’s story. For the first day, we were asked to read the verses in Genesis 28 where Jacob leaves for Bethel after Esau plans to kill him. I had no idea about this. I mean, I thought the idea that Jacob would receive Isaac’s blessing rather than Esau had been mutually agreed upon. That’s how my father explained it once when we ate lentils for dinner: that Esau voluntarily swapped his firstborn’s right for a bowl of lentils. He then personalized the story to my younger sister and me. I probably thought to myself that my sister could keep her yucky lentils and eat mine as well.

Anyway, apparently not. Rebekah had urged Jacob to escape the family home and go to her brother. This, the plan author compares to us leaving home to go off to college. Except, she says, Jacob didn’t have his family to support him should catastrophe strike. This hit home to me.

When I lived independently in Nijmegen in 2007, I didn’t have my parents’ support either. That is, when I wasn’t coping, they made it very clear that I wasn’t to rely on them. I had my community support staff, of course, but they too had their conditions for supporting me.

At one point while resting in Bethel, Jacob has a very important dream. In it, the Lord speaks to him and promises him the land on which he lay. Okay, fine by me. I don’t need land. but I do need comfort.

The plan then goes on to highlight verse 16: “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.'” (Genesis 28:16 NIV)

This, then, was comforting but also slightly scary to Jacob. This is so relatable! In 2007, I had no idea there was even a God, let alone that He cares about my life. Now I do know, but it’s sometimes scary too. Maybe because I am not used, with the exception of my husband (and I doubt that all the time), to being loved unconditionally.

Of course, Jacob’s story takes place long before Christ. However, the God of the Old Testament, unlike what some atheists told me when I first learned about religion, isn’t a horrible dictator. He is still the same and He was with Jacob. I love this. Do you, too?

Linking up with Grace and Truth.

14 thoughts on “Knowing God When I’m at a Fork in the Road”

    1. Thank you so much for encouraging me. I haven’t read much in the Old Testament except for Genesis and Jonah and the occasional bits here and there. It’s comforting though to know that so many Biblical figures experienced family dysfunction too and yet were protected by God.

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  2. Good for you for taking the extra step in your Bible study. Several years ago, I was not familiar with the Old Testament either. I knew the basics – had heard the stories – but had never read all the way through for myself. I was amazed at the lessons I learned from the Old Testament. And the real, human lives that were described there.

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    1. Thanks for commenting. So true! There’s of course a lot of horrible stuff in the Old Testament at least by our modern-day, Western standards, but then again society was very different then. We can’t expect even God-fearing humans of the Old Testament to have lived by our current-day standards.

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    1. That makes so much sense. I feel that way too. Like, in the case of my living independently, I was eventually taken seriously by professionals and taken to the psych hospital. I have no doubt God sent that psychiatrist into my life. Thank you for commenting.

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