How to Relax When You're Worried About Something, About Being Taken for Granted

Genesis 30 records an unusual story.  Jacob and Laban have reached a point where division will become essential, and the issue of property division is paramount.  Jacob offers a solution -- "I'll continue to tend your goats for awhile, and the way we'll divide the goats is by solid or mottled coloring."  Under this arrangement, Laban would get the solid colored goats, and Jacob would get the speckled, striped or spotted ones. 

That all seems somewhat rational. 

What doesn't seem rational is how Jacob then tended the flocks.  Jacob whittled some sticks, leaving some stripes on them, and he stuck the sticks in front of the watering troughs.  When the flocks were in heat, they came to drink and mated in front of the streaked branches.  Somehow Jacob ended up with a huge flock of speckled, striped and spotted goats.  For fun, let's just call it a pre-Mendelian experiment in genetics. 

I read this story in church when David Hanke was speaking about it during a homily on "Vocation."  David put it into context, and it was a perspective I needed as I've reached the point at age 52 that could be called a "no-man's land" at work:  a great career, a great adventure, but what now and what next?  Here was David's perspective:

"I want you to remember that God is an expert in your field of work, and He is a free consultant to you.  He's available in every conversation.  He sees your unnoticed faithfulness at work.  He knows what it's like to be taken for granted.  He knows the pain of presumption.  Rest in this:  all we have in all of this are whittled sticks, but God runs the universe, and He is over your work.  God knew Jacob's work; and He knows yours, too."