Poem April 13, 2020 Issue

Ever been afraid?

Lona Ingwerson

“Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.”*
He prayed,
“Deliver me, I pray thee,
from the hand of my brother,
from the hand of Esau.”
Esau surely felt he had every reason to kill him:
Jacob had stolen his birthright,
robbed him of his inheritance.
But in Jacob’s prayer,
he not only saw his brother as God’s perfect man,
he saw himself transformed.
And when they met?
Instead of a battle
an embrace,
and Jacob could truly say,
“I have seen God face to face,
and my life is preserved.”

Ever been afraid?
Distressed?
Jacob had a bigger challenge than you, I’ll wager—
it looked as though his brother was en route to kill him.
He prayed until he saw his brother’s face
as “the face of God,”
and guess what?
He was “pleased with me,”
said Jacob.

So what do you do?
What Jacob did.
Pray until you see man as the face of God as well,
and today
that man may be you.

—Lona Ingwerson
*See Genesis 32–33.