Do I Stay or Do I Go

He said, I am God,

the God of your father;

do not be afraid to go down to Egypt,

for I will make you a great nation there.

Genesis 46:3

In Genesis 12:1–2, God called Jacob’s grandfather Abram out of the Ur of Chaldeans, and He told him to go to a land that He would show him. God told Abram that there He would make him into a great nation.

In Genesis 26:2, God appeared to Jacob’s father, Isaac, and told him not to go down to Egypt.

Now here, in Genesis 46 Jacob has been sent word to not just visit Egypt, but to pack up and move there. Jacob hesitates to make this move, with good reason.

God knows our hearts. He knew the dilemma that Jacob was struggling with within himself: to stay in the land that he knew God had promised his family and their descendants, or to move to a land that his father had been commanded not to go to.

God knew the struggle going on within Jacob, and so God came to him. “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). We cannot put God in a box. Abraham and Isaac were not to go to Egypt because it was not time. However, with Jacob, now it was time.

It was time for the word of God to be fulfilled: “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years’” (Genesis 15:13).

God may call us to live in one place, to take one job, to teach one class, and then after a time, He might call us again. We have to remain open to the voice of God and remain in daily communication with Him.

He has a purpose and a plan for our lives. Acts 17:26 tells us that God has determined our appointed time and the boundaries of our habitation. In Psalm 32:8 God tells us, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.”

God assures Jacob that he is to go to Egypt and that He would be with him. God does not hide His will from us. If we seek Him, He will instruct us in the way that we should go.

Oh Father,

“I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). If we seek You and open our eyes and ears and hearts to You, ready to walk in willing obedience, You are always faithful to show us the way. Oh Father, how I desire to walk in Your will and not in my own. Oh Father, I live by the Spirit; therefore I should walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). Oh Father, that I would not be foolish but that I would understand Your will (Ephesians 5:17). I ask that I would be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that I might walk in a manner worthy of my Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that I would please You, my God, in all respects

(Colossians 1:9–10).

My Jesus, it is in Your name that I pray,

Amen.