Even Bon Voyage. No, the blessing that Isaac must give it to his firstborn child is a divine gift of great power. It's a birthright that conveys some kind of extra dispensation that connects the energy and vitality of humanity to the image of God that is stamped on each of our souls. And was this blessing is given it can never be taken back. The giving of this divine gift can never be put in reverse.

And the same is true for each of us today. If we who are gathered here this morning, if we are serious, serious about developing patience so that we can wait on God's blessings that come to fruition in our lives, then the first thing we must do is identify the unique and divine purpose for which God created us. We must remember our beginning. We must keep fresh in our mind that God made each of us just a little more than the angels. In other words, we must engage in a rigorous self inventory prayer, and we ask ourselves for what purpose that God create me for what purpose that God created you. What is the reason that God's Amazing Grace woke us up this morning, clothed in our right minds with the blood warm and moving through our veins? So much so that our brains were not our calling boards, nor our covers are running sheets. What is your reason for living? Sisters and brothers, let us take time out to turn over again and again. Exactly what is our God given birthright? What divine blessings were placed in the essence of our being when God knitted us in our mother's womb and brought each of us for a miraculous birth? And now we must wait patiently for those gifts and graces to come to fruition.

The second lesson in our text that we must embrace related to the patience to wait, the patience to wait on the Lord is found in our present contemporary context. When we revisit the scripture lesson for the morning, we find Isaac sitting and waiting for Esau, his first born son, to come to him. And after a while, the Bible says that Isaac hears someone enter the tent and the person says, My father. But then the dark, the voice of one son sounds like another. And so Isaac asked the question, Are you my son? Who are you? In both fashion, Jacob lies, and he says that he is Esau Jacob disguising himself as Esau by putting on Israel's clothes and imitating Esau as a boy. Now, the silence that follows makes Jacob words appear too quiet. It is if our shadow falls between the father and the son, and in turn, the father, Isaac reaches forward as if to touch his son's face. And again, Isaac asks the question Are you my son? Esau and Jacob lies a second time only. Perhaps Nala is boldly now, perhaps the second time Jacob's light is almost a whisper. Perhaps not even bothering to disguise his voice and have hope that his father, Isaac will see through the deception.

And it's difficult for those who are gathered here this morning first to know exactly what Isaac could see and what he could not see. Maybe, like so many of us, it was hard for Isaac to distinguish clearly between what was actually true and what in his heart of hearts he wanted to believe was true about his family's situation. You know how it is. There are those among us who are parents, and sometimes we live in denial about our own children and our grandchildren, about our nieces and nephews. We say we want to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when it comes to our kinfolk and our skinfolk. But it's just like Jack Nicholson says in the movie, a few good men, far too many of us. We can't handle the truth when it comes to our own flesh and blood. And as adult children, let us ask ourselves, what is the truth about our parents that we feel denied to this very day? Well, anyway, maybe it was simply too hard for Isaac to tell the difference between Esau and Jacob. So Isaac stretches out both of his arms and braces Jacob and bestows upon Jacob the Divine Birthright. That's Jacob Jacob, whose name in Hebrew means the one who supplants the one who approves. The one who supersedes another by force about treachery. That's Jacob is a son in the story who in the most scheming, calculating way steals his brother's blessed birthright. It is important for us to remember also how before being cheated out of his birthright, but is sold his birthright for some bread and porridge. Because Jacob came to Esau when Esau was very hungry after a long day working in the field. At that moment, he saw Birthright look pale. They look phantom like it looked intangible compared to the delicious smelling reality of a good physical meal.

And the same is true for us today. The second message in our script, a lesson for the morning, requires us to embrace the findings that come to us when we take our rigorous personal inventory. If we really want to know how to read on the Lord for God's blessings to unfold unfold in our lives, then we must plan our lives in light of the finding of our radical soul searching inventory. We are still in love. Each of us must own up to our part. A part of the human condition is that we've all fallen short of the glory of God. We've all made mistakes. But this I made them when we call our birthright. Some of us may find that we have swapped our God given gold for earthly sand so many times that we no longer know which is which. Other others of us must admit that, like Esau, we handed over our divine birthright to our mothers, or to our fathers, to our sisters, or to our brothers, to our husbands, or to our wives, to our lovers, or to our friends. I push it to the side that specific work that God is calling for us to do. Still, others of us, when we engage in our soul searching inventory, we may find that we in present situations that we obtain through dishonest scheming like Jacob, or that we established only utilitarian relationships with everyone that we meet and greet. And in the end, we become God fearing women and God fearing men who manipulate and intentionally use others, hoping that people around us will think highly of us. And now we have to deal with the fact Oh, what a web we we when it first we try to deceive.

A few of us may need to come clean in the core of our beings as to how we sell our birthright to the material world in the name of workaholism. We are the ones who will work around the clock from sunup to sundown so that we can breath in and every brand name of Whatchamacallit that avatars of Moses tell us that we must have in order to keep up with the Joneses. And now we're over our heads in debt. Well, financial, where is strangling and choking the very life out of us? And in turn, we are in a predicament where we know better than anyone else in this place. That is not my sisters, not my brother, but it's me. Oh, Lord, standing in need of prayer. Yes, blood.

The second lesson related to the patience to wait, the patience to wait on the Lord is the time when we resolve our past action and we will plan our living accordingly. It is essential to bear in mind that no one outside of us can dictate to us exactly what it is we must do to live according to God's specific plan for our lives. It is only through a daily, disciplined devotional life that God reveals to ask the what the how and the why of each of our divine birthright. Now, the third and final lesson for the morning related to the patience to wait on the Lord deals with rededicating all of our gifts now graces to Almighty God.

If we no longer want to give away our divine gifts for a mess of pork and beans, then let us take a last look at our text for the morning. According to the biblical story, the only price that Jacob has to pay for co-opting his brother's inheritance is the Jacob must leave home. Jacob must go away from home until Ethel's anger cools down. And we can imagine that leaving home was not easy for Jacob because Jacob, as a younger twin, had always been favored by his mother. From the very beginning. But yet, when Jacob becomes a fugitive, extraordinary things start to happen. Instead of suffering for his conniving and scheming ways, Jacob clearly profited from having taken Israel's birthright and their north side in the biblical narrative that indicate that anyone to anyone. When the stars in the biblical narrative that indicate that anyone thought any less of Jacob for his conniving and scheming action, there doesn't even seem to be any evidence of a troubling sense of guilt in Jacob's own conscience. Yes, this is the place in the story for the morning that we could find our greatest hope. From the very process of Jacob running for his life, Jacob, his effort to escape the wrath and anger of his twin brother in the very travails of Jacob away from home. After betraying his father by lying to Isaac in his twilight years, Jacob decides to camp up for the night in the Hill Country to the north, and the Bible tells us that Jacob lays down on a pillow stone and drains sweet dreams. Jacob doesn't even experience scary nightmares full of monsters and disfigured, despicable images. No. Instead, Jacob has beautiful dreams, a dream full of the wonderful unexpectedness of life itself. Just like the sound we sometimes sing, we're climbing Jacob's Ladder. Jacob dreams of a letter that reaches all the way up from heaven, from Earth to heaven, with angels ascending and extending and above the lava in the blazing starlight. Jacob hears the voice of God speaking, comforting words of a blessed benediction. Now, in the long run and most profoundly, in order for us to grow in the patience to wait, we must understand that honesty is the best policy. But as Christians, we have a life lesson here, and that lesson is that even when we mess up, even when we mess up big time, even when we have a day a day when we grab hastily swapping out Divine God given go for earthly saying the God who created us in the God, who knows all about going out and all about coming and Yariv. I am that I am God can take our mistakes. God can take our brokenness. And God can put each one of us back together again. Yes, the truth about the human condition is that we each have some esau in us and we each have some Jacob in us. And yet the God that we serve has sufficient power. The God that we serve has sufficient presence. The God that we serve has sufficient knowledge to wrap us in infinite mercy, touching our hearts with blessed dreams and divine promises, even when we mess that morning by morning and day by day.

So now, as we come to the end of the story, we find it's time for Jacob to go back home, for Jacob to go home and claim the land that God promised to give to him. Jacob's father, Isaac, has that long ago, and there's every reason and heart for Jacob to believe that his twin brother, Esau, will let bygones be bygones. So when Jacob reaches the river Jarvik, this is the only thing that stands between the fulfillment of the dream that was promised from God. Jacob sends his wives, his children and his servants with gifts to his brother, Esau, on the other side of the river, and Jacob stays behind to be alone. And then it happens out of the deep of the night and angel leaves in darkness. The Angel of God wrestles with Jacob. It must have been a terrible thought, a terrible experience not to see the angels face, but the strength of the rest. An angel appeared to be even more ferocious. All through the night, Jacob and the Angel wrestle in silence, and just before morning, it looks like Jacob is winning the fight. But it was at that point that the angel cries out to be set free before the sun rises, and then the twinkle of everything is put in reverse. The angel merely touches the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and in essence, Jacob is lying on the ground, crippled and helpless. The sense that we have here is that this was a divine providence from the very beginning of this wrestling match. When the angel would hold back into the berry and letting Jacob assert all of his strength, allowing Jacob to almost win the match so that in the end, Jacob would know, like the Broadway playwright who said our arms are too short to box with God. But the Bible says that Jacob does not release his grip on the angel of Jacob will not let the angel go, even though Jacob is lying on the ground curled up in a ball of helplessness. Jacob is holding on tight. Jacob is not holding onto an angel either valance or vindictiveness. But Jacob is holding on from a place of Great Nee Jacob holding. On type like the death grip of a drowning person and is at this point that Jacob cries out of the hands of God and Jacob says, I will not let you go until you bless me this time. Jacob is not asking for a blessing by hook or by crook. Jacob is not scheming, nor is he conniving. Instead, Jacob is pleading. Jacob is begging. Jacob is praying for a blessing that can only be given as a gift of mercy when our lives do. We hear ourselves at this moment crying for mercy? Simply praying Lord Lord have mercy on us. Lord Lord have mercy on me.

Yes, sisters and brothers. This is the third and final lesson in this story for the morning. If we are serious about growing impatience so we can wait on the Lord for the Lord's blessings, blessings to unfold in our lives, then how can we recall our birthright? And after we were playing, we plan our lives accordingly. Then we must rededicate ourselves to Almighty God. A friend of mine who is a physician told me that the place where the angel touched Jacob in the hollow of the time, this place is the most solid bone in the human body. Therefore, we must surrender the most solid parts of ourselves. We must surrender all to our creator and sustainer. Some theologians talk about this type of total surrender as being grasped by an ultimate concern. A few psychologists talk about the toll of surrender, as it means that when we totally surrender, our master mode is will change not just the New Testament. Writers simply says we will be born again. So the very last glimpse of Jacob in our script a lesson. The image of Jacob limping back home now for mothers and our forefathers who were enslaved in this country summed up their theological understanding of this story in these words, and it's the words of a prayer that have been handed down through the generation. And it goes like this. I was on a downward road. No head on my head. No shoes on my feet. No God on my side. No heaven in view. Our film made a living, not fit into the handcuffs of hell on my hands, and the shackles of damnation were on my feet. But the Lord spoke peace to my dying, so the Lord picked me up and turned me around and placed my feet on solid ground. And ever since that day, I've been sometimes rising and sometimes falling. But I made a vow to the Lord that I won't turn back no more. I'm going to run on. I'm going to run on. I'm going to run on and see what the end is going to be. So let us be as faithful as our ancestors, as we are to face the blaze of the new sunrise and our lives. Morning by morning. Let us run on. Let us hold on. Let us run on and see what the end is going to be. Now, henceforth and forever more that the people of God say Amen.