Second Blessing
Genesis 32:27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. 28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome."
It was some 20 years earlier that Jacob stood under the blessing of a ladder heading for heaven that he made a deal with God for which I thought he should have been fried. (See Genesis 28) But for the rest of his life, the struggle with God was real, even as he struggled with a false hope in family. 4 women in conflict offered by his father-in-law who tried to cheat him turned out to be a real struggle with God as well. Many have a first blessing from God in family or community, but later have the real challenge of living out the full blessing of God in their later life when the fullness of evil and sin are ranked around them. Have you had a “second blessing”?
For your prayers, The nation of Brunei