Genesis 28:15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

God promised to be with Jacob and to keep him. He said he would not leave Jacob until he had done what he had promised. Also, the covenant God made to Abraham was a blessing for Jacob because Abraham was his grandfather. God had so many blessings for Jacob, but he tried to make his own blessing instead of trusting and waiting on the Lord.

Genesis 32:26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

In this account, where Jacob wrestles with God, Jacob seems to be trying to make his own blessing. Jacob schemes to make his own blessing with God, with Esau and his father, and with Laban, his father-in-law. Jacob has many opportunities to wait and trust in God, but from the very beginning, Jacob is trying to scheme the same blessing God has for him.

When watching from the outside its easy to conclude that this is so foolish, Jacob made some really bad choices and did some bad things and its easy to see that side of him but we should look deeper and ask what is God trying to teach us in this portrait of one of the most significant patriarchs of God’s people. Jacob shows us that we can all fall into the trap of trying to make our own blessings. We need to trust God and include Him in everything that we do. At every step and each decision, we should consult Him. And even when he asks of us to do the thing we don’t want to do, we need to be able to make a decision to follow God’s directive regardless.