Just as Abraham had learned life lessons from his walk with God, so Jacob, too, learned valuable lessons from his failures and God’s faithfulness that helped him to be a good finisher.

Despite God’s promises to him in his dream at Bethel, Jacob spent many years trying to make things happen by manipulation, trickery, and deception. Only when he was in a jam so tight that there was no way of escape, did he surrender himself to God at Peniel.

How like Jacob we are! Instead of trusting God and allowing Him to work out His will in us we, like Frank Sinatra, say, “I did it my way!” Our way often leads us on detours that waste the weeks, months, or even years we could have been doing God’s will.

Yet, as Jacob learned, God’s patience never runs out. He will wait until we come to the end of ourselves and find out that His way is always best.

As his life drew to a close, Jacob was fully committed to the destiny of his descendants. He was in line with those whom God had chosen to be the builders of His nation. Jacob blessed his grandson, Ephraim, Joseph’s younger son, ahead of Manasseh despite Joseph’s protest. Did he have prophetic insight into the
destiny of Ephraim, as he did when he blessed each of his own sons on his deathbed?

His faith in God’s promises inspired him to request burial in Canaan in the cave his grandfather had bought for the burial of Rebekah and other family members. So, Jacob had learned to trust God’s promises implicitly as did Abraham and Isaac before him.

We would do well to take a leaf from Jacob’s book. God’s promises are His insurance policy for our past, present, and future. Without His promises, we have no guarantee that our destiny in Him is secure. Earthly insurance policies promise to step in when disaster strikes. God’s insurance policy guarantees a past forgiven and blotted out, a present filled with His presence, intervention, favour and blessing, and a future beyond our wildest imagination.

‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭2:9‬ ‭NLT‬
[9] “That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

We must be thankful that God has preserved the record of the lives of these Old Testament saints. Their stories are full of both warnings and encouragement for us to follow as we traverse the road they have already travelled.