Day 4 – Jacob

“There was no sparkle in Leah’s eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, “I’ll work for you for seven years if you’ll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife.” “Agreed!” Laban replied. “I’d rather give her to you than to anyone else. Stay and work with me.” So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel. But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.” Genesis 29:17-20 NKJV

Jacob types draw out life’s full flavours in faces, places, experiences, and objects that others may overlook – seeing beauty in everything and helping us pay better attention and notice life in all its beauty and mystery. We see this in Jacob’s life when he experienced a dramatic, life-changing encounter with God, inspiring him to memorialize that moment by pouring oil on a rock, a rock that every time he saw it, or walked by it with another person, would tell a story about God.

Jacob types discern beauty all around them. They don’t have to look for it—their souls’ lenses filter beauty and draw it to the surface of their awareness. Jacob types, perhaps more instinctively than other types, “see God in all things and all things in God.” Pouring oil on the rock, Jacob took an average item and created a meaningful moment. Jacob types have this ability to draw forth life’s beauty—and God’s beauty—through their resources utilized.
In Jewish understanding, something is beautiful if it endures. Something else can be pleasing to the eye and not attain this status of true beauty, because true beauty persists and remains. It is not transient and has nothing to do with the kind of beauty associated with today’s commercialized pursuit of remaining youthful, fit, and attractive—none of which are inherently evil desires. True beauty is anchored in and stems from the beautiful One, the Creator God. In this way, something can be beautiful even if it’s not pretty; it’s beautiful because of its essence, its intent, and the way it is used. Aesthetic beauty has its place, but it must have its basis in this reality to be truly beautiful.

Jacob types represent a mix of Abraham and Isaac types, with the Abraham type embodying hospitality and God’s free-flowing love and the Isaac type embodying God’s discipline and restraint.

Prayer: Father, thank You for Jacob money types seeing and understanding true beauty even in financial well-being where they make something meaningless to meaningful for Your Glory.

Credit to www.tommybrown.org