January 13 | Facing Your Past

Today’s Bible in a Year reading from Genesis 31–32 and Matthew 9:18–38 centers on a sobering and hopeful truth: God often leads us forward by bringing us face-to-face with what we would rather avoid. Across both passages, we see that faith is not exercised in isolation from reality but is formed as God meets us in moments when control slips away, and dependence becomes unavoidable.

In Genesis 31 and 32, Jacob leaves behind the security he has built with Laban and moves toward a future he has been dreading. God has promised to be with him, yet Jacob cannot escape the consequences of earlier deception, unresolved conflict, and fear. As the distance between Jacob and his past closes, the story reveals that God is not merely protecting Jacob from danger but preparing him for transformation. The wrestling, the fear, and the anticipation all become part of the way God reshapes Jacob’s identity and faith as he steps into a future he cannot manage on his own.

Matthew 9 presents a similar pattern through the ministry of Jesus. Those who come to Him are desperate, exposed, and beyond self-reliance. A ruler grieving his daughter, a woman suffering for years, the blind, the mute, and the weary crowds all encounter Jesus at the point where human solutions have failed. Compassion, healing, and restoration break into situations marked by loss of control, revealing that God’s power is often most visible where strength runs out.

Together, these passages invite us to consider how God works not by helping us avoid difficult moments, but by meeting us within them. Faith grows when we step forward despite fear. Transformation happens when the past can no longer be ignored. Today’s reading challenges us to trust that God is present and active, even when the path forward requires facing what we would rather leave behind, and to believe that His work in us is shaping something deeper than comfort or safety alone.