Stay Focused: Genesis 27:1-4
Whatever life may bring, focus on finishing the race strong. Life is worth living well. Each day, I hope to rest my head on my pillow and consider how God made me His hands and feet. At the end of my life, I hope I can lean back, breathe deeply, and consider how God made my life about becoming His hands and feet, too.
When Isaac is old, the time comes to bless his sons. He tells Esau to hunt and prepare some stew. It seems like a simple request from an old man who wants to revisit a favorite memory before he dies.
While the desire for the stew may be understandable, there is a larger issue. Given the passage at the end of the last chapter, why is Isaac blessing Esau? Esau married Hittite women and made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah, so why bless him? Why does Isaac overlook Jacob, especially when God told Rebekah the younger would rule over the older? Why endorse Esau when Esau already sold his birthright?
People aren’t perfect. Our faith is not perfect, either. Sometimes I am on fire for God and sometimes I am on fire for me. Sometimes I am strongly devoted to following God’s path for my life and other times I am strongly devoted to my own path. What’s scary is how quickly I can turn! Some mornings I wake up with my mind set on God and by lunch I’m living my own personal dream.
This is what happened to Isaac. He was a quiet meditative man with a personal faith. Now, he’s close to death – or at least he believes he is. As he considers his own impending death, he loses sight of the big picture. He loses focus. Isaac falls back into thinking like the world and valuing worldly ideals. Esau is a skilled hunter. He’s able to make good tasting food. He’s a man’s man. For these reasons, Esau was the child Isaac favored for much of his life.
As Isaac convinces himself he’s about to die – though he lives for another 47 years – he dwells on the past. It’s about pride in his son, who is skilled at manly endeavors. Isaac wants nostalgia to carry him for the rest of his life. His focus slips away from God and onto himself.
If we’re not careful, this can happen to anyone. We start off walking deeply with God, but before too long we forget to finish the race. The problems of our world creep into our life and the next thing we know we’re trusting in ourselves rather than remembering we belong to a great God. We experience hard days and become nostalgic of days gone past when life seemed better.
Life is hard. We’re not perfect. We all make mistakes and have days where we could do a better job following God. While life is hard, we can overcome. Whatever life may bring, focus on finishing the race strong.
