Sometimes God takes you where you don’t want to go because that is where you’ll grow. It’s like you wonder, God what do you want from me? His reply, nothing, I want to give you something. But I think sometimes what he wants to give us comes wrapped in a package that is really hard for us to accept. This has been a personal struggle for me. I have found myself feeling completely out of place, unhappy, frustrated and challenged. It is challenging when you feel you are living someone else’s dream and somehow you have to try and fit yourself into that space but all you really feel is stuck and out of place. Sometimes I just want God to answer my prayers and support me having a life I dreamed of and I often forget the value of the struggle that not only produces fruit in my life but produces the strong kind of fruit that lasts.

It reminds me of a story in the bible about a man named Jacob. Jacob was the guy God ultimately ended up blessing the most but it always came in unconventional ways. At one point in his story Jacob was living with and working for His uncle Labon. Jacob fell in love with Labon’s youngest daughter, Rachel. He made an agreement with his uncle that if he worked for seven years Labon would allow him to marry Rachel. Now just to clear things up it was fairly common to marry within the family back in those times. So Jacob worked the seven years and the wedding day came but instead of Rachel the uncle switched her with her older sister Leah. You see the Father wanted to make sure that Leah got the blessing that belonged to her as it wasn’t customary for the younger to marry first.

He used Jacob to bring a blessing on his daughter. Now the way he went about it was wrong but my point is that sometimes Heavenly Father wants to use us to bring a blessing to a place that seems cursed. Just like Jonah with Nineveh.  In those moments it seems so utterly against what we wanted or planned for our lives. Jacob planned for Rachel and he got Leah, Jonah planned for Tar-shish and he got Nineveh.  Now we don’t know the end of Jonah’s story but we know he saved Nineveh. We know even though Jacob was tricked he brought a blessing to Leah and she brought a blessing of increase to him. You see Jacob eventually was able to marry Rachel but she had a very difficult time having children. Leah however did not and through Leah Jacob was blessed with abundance.  So my point is that when God asks (emphasis on asks, not tricks) us to do something way out of our personal comfort zone there is a double blessing that comes with it.

I just pray that God would give us wisdom to recognize these times in our lives that the blessing isn’t just for us. So while it might challenge us the most it is also worth it because it could be the very thing that makes a saving difference in someone else’s life. I believe God will make it all worth it and just like Jacob he was doubly blessed because of it. And not only was he blessed he received all that the father promised him and more.