Remember, El Shaddai (God Almighty) is the promise making and promise keeping God.
God appeared to Jacob at Luz in Canaan, as he was fleeing from his brother. Genesis 48:4
4 and (God Almighty, El Shaddai), said to me, “I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.”
Jacob fled to the land of Haran and worked for his uncle Laban for twenty years, building a large family and many livestock. At the end of the twenty years God spoke to him;
13 ‘I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.’ Genesis 31
Jacob returned to Canaan and probably hoped that his days of wandering through the Middle East were behind him, but God had a different plan for the family. Joseph, the Dreamer, like his father Israel, also disappeared for twenty years. He reappeared without warning as ruler in Egypt during the famine – God had orchestrated it all.
29 Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time. Genesis 46
Joseph was a very important and busy man, ruler of a large and powerful nation, but when he met his father the ‘floodgates opened’ and he wept for a long time. He’d probably kept things buried and got on with his life, but now after twenty years his father was before him again.
Israel knew Canaan was his God given land and the land of his children forever! Yet circumstances had taken another unforeseen turn and God had sent them all south to Egypt. (His son Jesus, the Messiah, would later go down to Egypt, also to protect His life). The late Kitty Walden had a wise saying, ‘Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape’. So long as we are in these bodies, we will never fully know where life may take us, but we do know that God’s love and faithfulness never changes. He will always keep His promises to us, His children.
24 ‘“‘The Lord bless you
and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face towards you
and give you peace.’”
27 ‘So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.’ Numbers 6