My Jacob & My Esau

One of the problems I find with taking The Bible literally is that the morals of one time and place do not necessarily fit into another place and time.The glory of the story from one place and time period then,is the 'lesson' that the other place and time can learn from it.

Here is an example of what I mean.Issac married his second cousin,Rebekah.They had twin children,Esau,the older,and Jacob,the younger.Esau grew into a burly outdoors man,with a red furry hair.Jacob,was the apple of his mother's eye.He was dotted over by her.

Issac was old,and blind and on his death bed.He told Esau to go hunt and bring back his(Issac's)favorite game,and then to cook it up and serve it to him.Then,Issac would give Esau his blessing.

Rebekah over heard this conversation and told her younger son that she would cook this favorite dish for her husband and then have Jacob disguised as Esau go to his father and receive Esau's blessing.

Of course this did not sit well with Esau once he got back from the hunt only to find that his father had given away his blessing.Esau had already given away his birth right as oldest son for a bowl of stew to Jacob.So,perhaps the blessing of the first born was rightfully Jacob's.But the way Jacob and his mother went about procuring this right was terribly wrong in many ways.

Of course Mommy suggests to Jacob that he should book out of there for a while.So,while this is not the end of the Jacob story(more like the middle...after all,he does become 'Israel'),this is where I am going to stop for now,with is now...

...which brings me to this now,our present.Until the big layoff of Oh' six,I was a 'product selector' in a big food distribution warehouse.I would select food products from the bins along either side of the many isles that they placed in and along.I would then put this product on either one of two pallets.I would pile this product up to eight feet tall.I dragged my loads along on a doubly long pallet jack.Perhaps you have seen my work.Have you ever been in a grocery store and seen pallets stacked high with cans etc and wrapped with what looks liked Saran Wrap.That was me.

Now,most food packaging (i.e. cans of soup,dog food,soda pop,etc.)were selected off of their own pallets.These goods were stacked on pallets in what we would call 'a block'.A block was the amount of cases that it took to make a full-level-layer.You then could build another full level layer on top of that one.Ten double cases of pop made a flat layer;nine cases of Campbell's soup made a layer...and so on.

The object for the selector was to build as even of a load(or loads)as possible.For instance,if you had fifty double cases of soda pop,you would try to select these all first.Then you could build five flat layers on your pallet.Next you could get the 27 cases of Campbell's soup,and so on.

But...allot of times,you would have 54 cases of soda;25 cases of soup.You would still want to build a nice level load,but you had all these extra cases.

This is where,'My Jacob & My Esau' comes in.On the back skid of my double length pallet jack,I would throw all my even-level-rows.On the front pallet,I would throw the rest.Of course,the back,nice and pretty level pallet,I called,'My Jacob,' and the monster ugly load in front that always looked like it was going to tip over or fall down,I called,'My Esau'.

Jacob was the good load because Jacob took Esau's birthright and stole his blessing,right?And Esau is the bad load because all he did was feel very hungry after hunting outdoors all day while his brother stayed in the house.I mean,the only reason he didn't get his Holy father's blessing was because he did what he was asked to do.He went out to hunt for his dying father's last supper.

That would be exactly right if you took this story literally.Jacob,whom soon becomes father of the twelve tribes of Israel,was deemed righteous because he had God on his side.Am I correct...but that is not exactly correct,didn't he trick Issac,his father,whom also had God on his side?That doesn't seem right,nor,fair.

No,I believe that the main point to this story is that God works through every day,ordinary people.God did not necessarily pick Jacob over Esau because Jacob was any better then Esau,but he could have picked Jacob to prove that he is in us all...even folks like Jacob..especially through folks like Jacob...folks just like you and me.

That is why I had my 'Jacob' and my 'Esau'.For you see,I could not have had my perfect little Jacob without my dishevelled Esau.And,after doing load after load,Jacob always was the correct nearly perfect pallet,but it was through Esau,that I learned to build better loads,and become a better grocery selector.

Literally,doesn't that kind of figure?Just because bad things happen,that doesn't mean God isn't with you.He is.He is.

Oh,and soon on into our story...Jacob figures that one out,too.