And he blessed Joseph and said, "The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."
Jacob is old, near the end of his life, and he's blessing his grandsons. But look at how he describes God in the middle of it: "the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day." Not a distant deity he theorized about — a presence he can point to across an entire lifetime, decades of specific memory.
That's worth noticing, because Jacob's life wasn't smooth. He fled from a brother who wanted him dead, was tricked by his own father-in-law, buried a wife on the road, thought his favorite son was dead for over twenty years. And at the end of all that, the word he reaches for isn't "struggle" — it's "shepherd," someone who was actually leading and guarding the whole way, even through the worst of it.
You can't borrow someone else's proof that God has been present through their life. But it's worth asking whether, decades from now, you might be able to look back on your own life and find a pattern worth naming — even now, even before you can see how the story ends.
Looking back over your own years so far, is there a pattern of presence you haven't let yourself name yet?
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.