​
​If you sneeze, I will politely respond "Bless you." If you sneeze again.. you are on your own as I adhere to a strict one blessing per sneezer rule.  This is not negotiable.

But sneeze blessings are not the topic of the day instead a Father’s Blessings, and ultimately God’s blessings.  These blessings I want, and like I say often in The Back Pew .. ‘BlESSED beyond my DREAMS’. I want Prayer of Jabez supersized blessings.

TWINS!
It seems just like a chapter ago Isaac was just a boy, but now in Genesis 25 Isaac is all grown up and with his wife Rebecca has twin boys. The first to enter the world was Esau, and right on his heel literally (Ge. 25:25) was Jacob.

These boys were like so many brothers as they were very different from each other. Esau grew up to be a scruffy/hairy outdoors type who loved to hunt. Jacob on the other hand was not scruffy, and liked to hang out in the kitchen with maybe a reputation as a mamma's boy.  

The Father's Blessing
Next we are introduced to the power of the Father’s Blessing, and especially the blessings set aside for the first born in this case.. by beating brother Jacob in the 'birth canal dash' was scruffy/hairy Esau.

I am not sure how or why they worked the way they did in the Old Testament, but it seems like the 'Father’s blessing' had the power to make or break the future of the ‘blessee’. It was like winning the family inheritance lottery.. and there were no TAKE BACKS.

The Blessing Plot Thickens
So one day Esau comes in from hunting famished and is met by his brother Jacob. Esau is so desperate for food, that Jacob talks Esau out of his birthright since Esau replies, "what good is my birth right if I die today from starvation." 

​note: It appears Esau was a great hunter, but a bit of a drama queen. ​

So Isaac asks Esau to hunt, and then fix him some wild game for him and at that time he will give Esau his blessing. 

Well, Rebecca overhears this and wants this blessing to got to her favorite son (and kitchen apprentice) Jacob.  So while Esau is out hunting, she comes up with a planso simple, so ingenious, but with more than a hint of .. WHAT?

Mom schemes to put animal skins on Jake’s arms to appear hairy like his brother Esau. 

As strange as this sounds.. this plan works and Isaac though he was suspicious thought it was Esau, and in the end gives Jacob THE BLESSING OF THE FIRST BORN. The Ol' Birthright  SWITCHEROO​​ is complete!

​So this caper of the misplaced blessing is over.. without me understanding the blessings of Isaac, except the fact that there are no take backs.  The fact is God did intend for Jacob to be blessed as he  continues to bless the descendants of Abraham as promised, through Isaac, and now Jacob to continue the promise of a great nation.

Moral of  the story for us today? Be faithful like Abraham so that God can bless and use you  as part of his plan. Whether you are the first born, that dreaded middle child (kidding), the baby, or you are adopted.. God loves you,  and has a plan to bless & prosper all who love and obey Him.  

Jeremiah 29:11 "'For I Know The Plans I Have For You' Declares the Lord, 'Plans to Prosper You and Not to Harm You, Plans to Give You Hope and a Future.

Psalms 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. 

May God find us faithful and full of love for the one true God, and blessed by him in ways that are beyond our dreams.

Jeff (first born) Larson

Now onward and forward we go..

​Do you remember Hagar in Genesis 16, The fact that she had a son with Abraham now complicated life. Tensions and jealousy rose between Hagar and Ishmael with Sarah and Isaac, so Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away.

I obviously do not understand this whole dynamic or know how to justify this.. except I do know that Hagar and Ishmael were not how God planned to bless Abraham but through the birth of Isaac. 

This story is harsh, but in these verses we learn God heard the cries of Hagar and was with the boy. 17 ..the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven "Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying ..Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

I found a web site which lists the oldest people living today. When I checked it I read of a lady who was 115, and another that was 125, and then some lady I think from Peru that was supposedly 140!  There was a picture of this lady and, yes, she looked every bit of 140.  Of course I am not sure how we can really know she is that old (count her wrinkles like the rings on a tree?), but there is no doubt she is very, very old.

​So segue back to Genesis after Cain kills his brother Abel we move on to a ‘a whole-lotta-begetting’ going on. God’s command to “go forth and multiply” was one command mankind took to heart well beyond just knowing simple math facts!

But old in Genesis is a relative thing.  People in Genesis times lived to be sometimes 800 or 900 years old.

Adam lived to be 930 years old after God created him on the 6th day Genesis 5:5. His son Seth was 912 Genesis 5:8, Noah later on in Genesis we learn lived to be 950 years, and the long in the tooth award winner is .. Methuselah... the oldest man in the history of .. HISTORY. Methuselah was cut down in the prime of life at the age of 969 Genesis 5:25-27

I figure if I eat my veggies, drink milk, get 8 hours of sleep a night along with daily exercise and in only 908  more birthdays I will have Methuselah beat.  That will be in the year.. 2928 when I am neighbors with George Jetson.

They say you are only as old as you feel and I find this to be very little encouragement some days when feeling 'Genesis5esque' old.  Maybe not Methuselah old, but at least somewhere in the mid 500s.  and to think they did not have Ibuprophen.
​

The other interesting pattern of this was how old people were still.. um.. still.. ‘begetting’. While one of today’s serious society concerns is teen pregnancies, this was not the problem with society recorded in Genesis. 

In Genesis 5 it was not unusual for a couple to wait 70 to 500 years old before starting a family.  I guess those 500 years were spent playing golf, world travel using up frequent flyer miles, paying off the mortgage(s), credit card debt, or marking hot yoga off their bucket list. 

Maybe women in Genesis 5 wanted a career as a shepherdess, garden mogul, or working as a Mary Kay Cosmetics specialist before settling down and having kids. ​

​Let me close these early chapters of Genesis with a few more images sharing a Back Pew perspective. 

• Before Salt Lake City Lamech  was living with his daily double, 
  
• Enoch walked with God, and was no more. And finally
  
• the Nephilum. The Hebrew word for Nephilum  is “Fallen ones (maybe angels who smoked)”.. and they were certainly fallen... “fallin’” for the women of Earth – and God was not pleased.

So while it is hard for me to grasp the fact that I am 62.. a Methuselah like age (969) boggles the mind.  But like so many things in the Bible, just because I don’t understand does not make it not true.  

​From Genesis through Revelation I find the evidence and promise of God’s love and grace.
From the Garden to the Flood to the Cross all the way through life today sitting in my Back Pew there is this promise and evidence of a loving God.

May God bless each of you today in ways that are beyond your dreams. I pray you place your faith and hopes in the one true God of our Bibles.

Jeff (Methuselah like aches & pains) Larson

aka The Northwoods Good Samaritan of 2001. ​This is a story near and dear to my heart that I like to share most every December.  

Back in the December of 2001 on the roads of ice and snow near Hayward Wisconsin  a young mom with her preschool children loaded in the family car was heading home to the nearby town of Drummond when along the road she spots an older man with the hood up on his car.

This was a typical bitter cold December day, but though she has her young children with her she is impressed to stop and see if she can help. 

As she pulls over the old man approaches her car. She cautiously locks her doors and rolls down her window slightly to ask if she can help. The old man does not speak, tries to open the door, then reaches inside his coat.. making her all the more uneasy. 

The old man pulls out a small keyboard from his jacket and plays a pretyped short message explaining he has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) so he can not speak. He then types needs a ride into town. The young woman opens her car to the old man she does not know and drives him home.

This old man was my father Walter Larson, and the young woman was Jen Herricks, and Jen was the the Good Samaritan of Northern Wisconsin 2001. I wonder how many cars drove by before Jen stopped to help. How many macho northwoods guys in their 4x4 trucks drove by too busy to help an old man stranded on a bitter cold winter day? Maybe none, but maybe too many. But no matter, my dad was cared for by someone with a family car, and a kind heart.

I have shared this tale before, but just like any Clint Eastwood Western ie. The Good the Bad and the Ugly, or The Unforgiven.. this story of Justice with 6 shooters blazing begs to be retold.

A while back I watched a TV docudrama on the history of the American West. It was a time when Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James with guns a blazing shared the headlines of lawman versus Lawbreaker.

This brought my mind back to over 50 years ago in the (MID)western frontier of Cable Wi (population 280-maybe) when I served as an 8 year old lawman working with my deputee and 6 year old friend David Larson.  It was a time of lawlessness where big talk and big guns (cap & pop alike) were a way of life.

Bad blood had been brewing since Sunday School the previous Sunday when Dastardly Dick Ludzack and BadNews Bryan Anderson AGAIN refused to sing Jesus loves me (truth is neither could sing a tune to save their lives) and this type of brash defiance of our Lord would not be tolerated.  So just a few days later September 14, 1965 (right after school) Deputy Dave and myself traveled to the Ludzack Farm on the east side of town to bring these brazen lawbreakers to justice. If justice came at the end of a rope or my smokin' guns..  So be it.  ​

But after High School, I moved out on my own and out of ear shot of my parent's 'you ALWAYS or YOU nevers'.  I was now living in the land of grown ups, working a grown up job, and married a  wonderful 'grown up' Christian woman. I made no time for any weak you ALWAYS or you NEVER accusations.. UNTIL my marriage introduced a new 'strain' in the form of the dreaded Honey-Do-List.  And though my wife is very patient with me, it is fair to say Jeff ALWAYS need to be reminded to work on 'the list', and Jeff will NEVER finish it. 

But to fair, a honey-do-list has no real end.  

Now while this all makes good fodder for my smirking blog as I reminisce on my lifetime of you ALWAYS & you NEVER moments, the truth is.. it is simply not good practice. It implies a basic hopeless scenario, and no one wants to hear the you ALWAYS & you NEVER scolding.. this certainly is NOT the Gospel message of Grace.
​ 
So I pray each of you have a great day knowing God ALWAYS keeps his promises (Deuteronomy 7:9), and He will NEVER leave you nor forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5)

AND.. no matter your big or small prodigal son/daughter moments, your failures, your down moments, your rebellions,  your SINS. are ALWAYS forgiven as our Heavenly Father rejoices in our return and forgets he NEVER gives up on you. (read the Prodigal Son Luke 15:11-32)

Jeff

ps. While my Honey Do list is as endless as the universe itself, this morning I replaced a bad electrical outlet, hung a flag pole outside, put down a first coat of paint in our downstairs family room/office, and worked in the yard transplanting ferns and trimming branches.  I am finishing this blog while my bride is away browsing neighborhood Garage Sales..Fortunately, she does not read my blogs so this will be our secret.
​

I feel kind of bad, but most of the 9-5 jobs in my life have not provided me much satisfaction, but I am thankful they helped pay the bills.  My good friend Bryan Anderson has been a college professor at Bethel University since graduating from college and loves it.  I am envious of that and happy for him and others like Bryan, but that has not been my story. But that'a neither here nor there.. now.  I am almost 62, in good  health,  and look forward to waking up without an alarm clock, then drinking coffee at a leisurely pace, 

I have a good life! Wonderful wife of almost 35 years. Our three grown up 'kids' and 4 grandkids all live close by. We attend a wonderful Bible preaching church Grace Church Roseville, where we have made good friends.  And, we have a loving God with has plans for us.. even in retirement. Just hope it is like Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

and not what God said to Abram in Genesis 12:1-4. ​

Most every year around this  time I like to share the story of the birth of our first born. The birth of each of our children have their own special story, but my son Curtis just had a birthday on February 13th so it is his turn to be remembered in this birth blog.

Thirty three years ago my wife and I were anxious parents-2-be expecting our first. We had already made a few typical false alarm trips to the hospital (aka Braxton Hicks practice contractions), but on February 13th, 1986 it was the real deal and life would NEVER be the same.

Life Flashing before my eyes.. Larson Style.  In the last 7 short days I have experienced highs and lows, laughter and tears, life and death.  I know most of all of us  have weeks like this, but  last  week was  my turn.

On Tuesday August 9th my Aunt Marie passed away unexpexectedly at the age of 87. She was loved and will  be missed of course by family and friends.  We all grieve and are sad for our loss, but celebrate her arrival to Heaven where she is  reunited with family,  friends, and  most importantly JESUS.  This  is the paradox of the Christian experience where the lines between death and life (the eternal type) are experienced  by those who love the Lord.