you Good morning. I'd like to share a few thoughts from Genesis 29 for your journey ahead today. I hope they'll be an encouragement to you. We've been discovering in Genesis that there's this theme of deception on the part of Jacob. He was a supplanter from his birth. Remember, he was grasping a hold of his brother's heel as they came out of the womb, his twin brother, as they came out of the womb together. Then he was a manipulator when it came to securing the birthright. His brother coming in from the field, starving, and he wanted some of Jacob's stew. Jacob said, sell me your birthright. He just manipulated Esau into getting that birthright. In chapter 27-28, Jacob is deceptive toward his father, and does so in an effort to steal the blessing from his father. So there's this theme of deception and manipulation that runs through Jacob's life. But here we come to chapter 29, and guess what? The very thing of which Jacob is guilty ends up biting him. The deceiver is deceived, and this on the part of Laban. Jacob comes to Laban's household, and Laban's got a daughter that Jacob's pretty fond of, and he'd like to marry her. Jacob offers to serve Laban for seven years in order to gain the privilege of marrying his daughter Rachel. Laban says, sounds like a deal. Seven years later, Jacob comes to Laban and says, seven years have served, time for me to get married to Rachel." Laban says, let's do it. They create the wedding feast, and yet then the night when the wedding is to be consummated, the marriage is to be consummated. Jacob is waiting for his bride, and Laban, the father-in-law, brings not Rachel to Jacob, but her older sister Leah to Jacob. You and I might say, well, how in the world could he have been so easily deceived? Well, there's the whole practice and cultural practice of modesty that would have covered up the bride's face, and so forth. Then in the morning, Jacob wakes up and he realizes it isn't Rachel lying next to him, it's Leah. He's been tricked, he's been deceived, and he goes and fusses at Laban and says, what in the world? I served you for Rachel. And Laban passes it off and says, well, you know what? I can't give the younger before the older one's married. That's not our custom. So, you know, serve me for seven more years and you can have Rachel too. And, you know, Jacob has been hoodwinked. He's been deceived and he really doesn't have any choice. If he wants Rachel, he's going to have to agree to the deal. And so he does. He ends up with another wife. Then that deception, of which he's been a victim, is going to bring a great deal of chaos and heartache and conflict into Jacob's home and family in the years to come. Here's what I want us to get from this. The Lord, in his disciplining and refining and shaping and molding his people, will often use their very own character flaws against them in an effort to refine them. In other words, Jacob the deceiver, he experiences deception. and what is it you've seen in your own life, the character flaws? You know you have them, you know they're there, you know they're yours. How is the Lord shaped and worked in your life to try to shave off some of those rough edges of your character flaw by having that flaw used against you? I'm sure it's probably happened at some time or another in your life. Well, this is one of the ways the Lord disciplines his own as an expression of his love to mold us and shape us into one whom he can use. Well, our Father and our God, we don't always like the process, but we're grateful that you love us so much, that you do indeed work in our lives and you shape us and mold us to be more pleasing and refined and acceptable in your sight by dealing with some of these character flaws that afflict us. So Father, thank you for your kindness to us. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, well listen, have a good rest of your day. I trust the Lord will bless you in it.