At times we run from God because we are afraid of what the future holds: Is it blessing or it is hardship? Some theologians even have a so-called “open” view of God; that is, they believe God doesn’t actually know the future. Now, while many of us would argue that this portrait of God is not the one we see in the Scriptures—and in fact, far from it—do we not sometimes live as if God doesn’t know the future, or at least as if His kind providence doesn’t extend to us? If only we were in control, we say to ourselves, things would be different.

Certainly we do face hardship, and sometimes the future weighs upon us with dread. But if our lives are circumscribed by God—and if we have entrusted ourselves to Him—we can put stock in His providential care. For God reminded His people in exile, and He reminds His pilgrim children in exile in this world: “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’”

But when the future is uncertain and God’s blessing seems in doubt, we want to run from what we imagine God may have in store for us. We are not alone, for we even see this pattern of resistance in the lives of the saints, and perhaps most notably in the life of the patriarch Jacob.

Now I want to get to Jacob’s story, but I wish to begin it many years later with Moses’ story, and specifically, with his initial encounter with God. Why with Moses? you ask. Because of how God reveals Himself to Jacob and Moses, and how each responds to God.

Reading through the Scriptures, we hear the phrase “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” repeatedly. A portion of this phrase is echoed at the end of Genesis upon the death of Joseph and the promise of God’s covenant with Abraham. But it is Moses who first actually hears this expression, and from a most unlikely conduit—a burning bush. “There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush … reads Exodus, chapter 3. "‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.’”

Moses was shepherding a flock on the edge of a desert when God came near. What was he doing in the desert? “By faith he left Egypt,” the writer of Hebrews tells us, “not fearing the king’s anger.” Moses’ future looked bleak, for Pharaoh wanted him dead. But Moses’ future—and yes, our future—is in the hands of a greater King.