ESAU WAS NOT THE POOR TWIN.

Gbam!!!

Special thanks to T30 family morning devotion. Going through the book of Genesis has been a really fun ride for me, and on today's devotion, something was said that struck me.

You know the way we were told the story of Esau and Jacob in children’s church. Jacob, a conniving thief, steals Esau’s birthright and then his blessing, and Esau was left with nothing and he wept.

I had somehow always felt bad for Esau and wondered why God would allow such great injustice to happen to him, but going through Genesis recently on T30, I’ve come to see this same story differently.

Yes, Jacob and his mother were a conniving bunch, however, Esau was not cursed. He was blessed too, but not in the same way Jacob was.

When Esau came crying to Isaac after Jacob had taken the blessing, Isaac still blessed him. He told him that he would live by the sword, that he would serve his brother, but then he said something interesting:

“When you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”

Hmm! Restless.

Esau was not told that his story would forever be defined by what Jacob took from him. There was still something ahead of him, there was still a way out.

And maybe this is where the story becomes a little more personal for us, because sometimes, we are Esau.

Sometimes we enter life already disadvantaged, someone else gets the opportunity we desperately wanted, someone has a better background, better connections, more resources, more support, or simply gets there before us.

Sometimes, something is genuinely stolen from us.

And it would be dishonest to pretend that these things do not matter. They do, disadvantages are real, and some losses cannot simply be wished away.

But maybe the greater tragedy is believing that what we started with is all that we can ever have. Esau lost something significant, but he did not lose the ability to keep going.

And I think there is something almost frighteningly beautiful about consistency, there is a point where the person who keeps showing up becomes difficult to defeat.

Not because they had the best advantage or because they were the most talented person in the room, or because life was particularly kind to them. They simply refused to stop.

There is almost a universal law to this thing: when you keep showing up, keep trying, keep knocking, keep building, keep starting again, eventually something has to yield.

The door may not open when you first knock, you may even discover that someone else got the key before you, but knock long enough, show up long enough.

There are things that eventually have to give way to a person who refuses to stop.

Maybe your life does not currently look like the life you imagined, but know this, you're not too disadvantaged, Esau was not the poor twin, he was not left with nothing, he had a different story, and perhaps his story required something different from him.

He had to become restless enough to throw off the yoke, and when he and Jacob met years later he was equally as rich as Jacob, do you see the irony?

So, we too have to become restless enough to keep going, not restless in the sense of being dissatisfied with everything, but restless enough to refuse to accept defeat as our final fate.

Dearest reader, I do not know what hand life dealt you. Maybe it was unfair, but please, do not confuse a bad beginning with a bad ending. You may not have the best advantage, but you can still show up. Again, and again, and again.

Sometimes, all you can do is keep your hands on the plough and trust that consistency has a way of making room where there seemed to be none. Keep going, biko. Something has to yield eventually.

@favvy_Okwans🖤.