Confronting Unhealthy Pressure

Proverbs 22 challenges parents to “teach their children to choose the right path because when they are older they will remain upon it.” What did Rebekah teach Jacob as a child and adolescent that allowed him to defraud his brother Esau of their father’s blessing? Fear of discovery was overwhelmed by Rebekah’s convincing words of deception.

What prevented Jacob from standing up to the pressure his mother was putting on him to commit this heinous sin? His mother’s values prevented her from teaching him appropriate boundaries and God’s rules for living. Little did he know this act of deception and fraud would permanently separate him from his mother.

Rebekah apparently felt it’s okay to be deceitful provided you don’t get caught. Jacob must have been driven by greed and lust for power and prestige. He would have to learn time and again that God neither sleeps nor slumbers. God knows our deeds and our heart, yet consistently desires to create in us a clean heart through our repentance if we will but seek it.