God Never Gives up on You

Friend, 

You can’t help but root for Jacob. His grandfather, Abraham, was the father of our faith, and from the beginning it is apparent that God has great plans for his life. But as you begin to read Jacob’s story, you quickly find that he is a less-than-perfect figure. His journey seems to be two steps forward and one step back. He does something foolish, then he redevotes himself to God. Then he does something even more foolish and later remembers
God again. You think he will arrive—that he will have an epiphany that changes him for good. But it never happens.

So, why does the Bible include Jacob’s story at all? Perhaps because the point of Jacob’s story is not Jacob. It is God. Throughout Jacob’s trials, God remains faithful to him. He does not abandon him even on his darkest night or after his greatest mistake. God proves through Jacob’s life that no matter what we do, no matter how many steps backward we take, he is always with us. The grace he gives us through his Son, Jesus, is greater than our biggest setback.

Jacob’s story reveals that when we doubt our legacy—when we feel like the crooked bough on the family tree—God’s grace will never fail us. His grace is the grand marshal of the parade, leading his ever-swelling cast of has-beens and never-weres out of halfway houses and prisons and into his palace. God’s grace isn’t only as good as we are—his grace is as good as he is. And it’s not something that God gave just one time to people long ago. No, God’s grace is given today . . . to anyone who will so much as call out to him in prayer.

God lowers the ladder to us. We do not have to climb it to him. When we run away, he stays. When we’re foolish, he forgives. Perhaps no other character in Scripture proves this to be true of God more than Jacob. So, if you learn only one thing from this study, I hope it is this: God’s grace never quits. He did not give up on Jacob. He will never give up on you.
— Max Lucado