As I’m reading through the Bible this year (join me!), I’m in that familiar part of Genesis – you know when we start reading the Bible, we at least get through Genesis before we quit! So I’ve read all of Genesis many times. I asked the Lord in advance to show me something I hadn’t seen before. Something I need to act on. (A good prayer for any day.) And here’s what I saw, relating to some current events I’ve been writing about:

And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.” (Genesis 32.6 – 8, ESV)

The messengers brought back a simple observation: Esau is coming to meet you with 400 men. Jacob ASSUMED that these were men of war and that Esau was attacking him. His response was to be “greatly afraid and distressed,” and he implements a complex plan to protect his family, his assets and appease Esau.

But Esau apparently has no ill will toward Jacob. The fear was for nothing. (You can read the whole account in Genesis 32 and 33.)

What are we afraid of? Were the events of January 6 and any (hopefully, unsuccessful) plans for this week motivated by fear? I pray that we have nothing to be afraid of. And if we are afraid, maybe we should commit our fears to God as Jacob did:

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him… (Genesis 32.11, ESV)

Don’t be like this people,
always afraid somebody is plotting against them. 
Don’t fear what they fear. 
Don’t take on their worries.
If you’re going to worry, 
worry about The Holy. Fear GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies. (Isaiah 8.12, 13, MSG)