Dwelling in the Land

Well this morning we hope to cover quite a bit of ground in chapter 26, looking at verses 12 through 33, which will leave just verse 34 for next week. So we're gonna condense a lot of verses into our time this morning, whereas next week we're going to expand one verse in the time we'll have next week.

Last week we considered the way that Genesis chapter 26 mirrors a different episode in the life of Abraham, specifically Genesis chapter 20. There also Abraham dwelt in Gerar under very similar circumstances to his son Isaac, and that was the great application last week.

Like father, like son. That continues to be the backdrop for verses 12 through 33, though our application will be somewhat different this morning. The key remains that like father, like son, God has renewed his covenant with Abraham unto Isaac.

He's renewed the Abrahamic promise, specifically that of land, seed, and blessing, specifically blessing to the nations. And this morning, as we consider verses 12 through 33, what I want to do is look at it in terms of three reversals.

I think we have literary motifs of ironic, not only parallel, but also ironic reversal. And so I want to consider three reversals in verses 12 through 33 this morning. The first is going from trial to blessing.

Certainly that brings us out of the first 11 verses to the verses we begin in verse 12. Second reversal would be from wanderer to seeker. From a wanderer to a seeker. And then lastly, in light of the whole chapter, where we begin and where we end, from famine to feast.

So these are the three motifs, the three reversals we'll consider in these verses. Trial to blessing, wandering to seeking, and famine to feast. I also believe these three reversals are something that Christians can expect in their life.

And perhaps you can amen any one of these, whether being in a place of wandering, maybe before you were converted to Christ, or maybe even since. If we speak of wandering as backsliding, certainly Isaac was backsliding when he was in Gerar, much like his father.

Perhaps you're experiencing trial even right now. Maybe you've gone from blessing to trial. Maybe it's been a long trial, a hard trial. Perhaps you've been in a place of famine, physically, spiritually.

Perhaps your health could be described as something desolate and draining, therefore, on your spiritual vitality. These are reversals that Christians come to expect in their lives. And so there's much application for us here this morning.

Trial to Blessing in the Midst of Famine

So let's begin with verses 12 through 14 as we consider trial to blessing. Then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundred folds and the Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper.

It's interesting, just notice that he doesn't say Isaac again, he says the man, which almost seems to ring back to Edenic blessing. The man that God had placed in the garden and causing this bounty and this abundance and this fruitfulness.

And so it's almost echoing this Edenic language. The man began to prosper and he continued to prosper until he became very prosperous. For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants.

Now the previous verses that we had read last week, Isaac has come out as a deceiver, as a sinfully fearful man, fearful of man, not fearful of God, rather distrusting of God, and even at the point of being willing to jeopardize his wife, Rebecca.

And as we said, as a result of his sin, he has a wrong view of sin, a wrong view of God, therefore a wrong view of himself, a wrong view of his wife and his household, and a wrong view of his neighbor, which is always the consequence of sin.

You don't get a right view of anything when you're living in sin. But we find Isaac now, beginning in verse 12, under Abimelech's protection, right, if anyone touches his wife, if anyone disrupts this marriage, he's a dead man.

And now he's dwelling in the land of Gerar, and God is blessing him, blessing him to the ceiling, abundantly blessing him. So he's in Gerar, in the midst of famine, being utterly blessed, trying to make a Jeremiah 29 kind of lifestyle, to be fruitful, to be a blessing, to dwell in peace.

And we read, the first year he sows, that's usually kind of your year of loss, right, the first time you scatter seed, especially in a time of famine, you're not expecting to get anything back, maybe a few alfalfa sprouts to throw in the jars.

But what does he have? A hundredfold return. As soon as he scatters, God blesses him. It's near miraculous. So not only a plentiful harvest, but numerous livestock, a whole retinue of servants, all of this is the emphasis of God fulfilling the promise he's made in verses 3 and 4.

I will bless you. I'm going to bless you in the land. This land belongs to you. I'm going to bless you in the land. So what is God doing here? He's blessing Isaac in the land. And also, it begins to set up where this narrative moves us.

It begins to introduce this tension now between Isaac and the household of Isaac and the Philistines. They're living in the midst of famine in an already arid region, the south, the Negev. In times where the weather was cycling, in times of famine, migratory groups would settle.

So now the resources are fewer, the demand is very intense, and there's all sorts of irritations and squabbles. There would have been disputes during the dry season, even in good years, but this is not a good year.

This is a time of famine. There's not enough to go around. And so realize what the Lord is showing to the inhabitants of the land. I am the one who blesses my people in the midst of the land. He's pouring out blessing upon Isaac in the midst of a famine.

How much blessing? Look at the emphasis here. In Hebrew, we don't use forms of exclamation. You emphasize something by repeating it. You don't have what we call superlatives. You just repeat things. The man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.

That's a threefold repetition of prospering. How much has God blessed Isaac? Abundantly beyond. And this again is the first step toward the Lord fulfilling his rightful place within the land. But notice that with blessing, there's difficulty.

This is very important. As soon as God is blessing him, we read at the end of verse 14, so the Philistines envied him. You can take it as a principle in the Christian life that with blessing comes difficulty.

With blessing comes hindrances. And you can't interpret the hindrance or the difficulty as though it cancels out or voids the blessing. Well, it must not be a blessing if it's this difficult. Well, surely this is not God blessing me and helping me and restoring me if it comes with all of this baggage and difficulty.

We can't interpret God's blessing in light of the difficulty that accompanies it. And we see that here in chapter 26. The Lord is abundantly blessing Isaac, but Isaac's life is getting a little more difficult as a result of that blessing.

Amen, parents of toddlers? Life gets difficult with God's blessings, but that does not nullify what God declares to be a blessing. Marriage is a blessing and marriage comes with difficulty and hindrances.

You have to work at it and you consistently and constantly are working at it to improve it, to reinforce it and strengthen it, to not drift apart from that first love you had, as we'll see even happens with Isaac and Rebecca.

Blessings also introduce hindrances. So here we have the hindrance of the Philistines and specifically their envy. This term envy is going to reappear in the Joseph narrative. Perhaps for good reasons initially, Joseph is kind of a brat.

But his brothers envy him. Here's this spiteful envy, this animosity within Jacob's household, between the sons of Jacob. And we see that same envy here. And envy will always lead to expressions of envy, cruelty, bullying, real abuse, real expressions and actions of hatred.

And we see that here in verse 15. What do the Philistines do? They're not just jealous and writing about it in their diaries at night. They're actually taking action. They go in fill in all the wells that Isaac's father had dug up.

We read verse 15. The Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham, his father, and they filled them with dirt. They filled them with the earth. Please remember that this is a time of famine.

This is about the most irrational thing you could do. Fill a well with water of dirt in a time of famine when water is scarce and very precious. But your hatred burns so hot that you'd rather be thirsty and lose cattle than allow Isaac to have a claim in the land, to be able to draw water from the well that his father had dug.

And this is an example of how irrational jealousy, envy, and outbursts of wrath can make someone. You are willing to almost self-destruct, to harm yourself just out of spite for the one that you're envious of.

The Philistines were essentially threatening Isaac's livelihood. We'll make do. We've got the spread. But you're dependent upon these few wells and we're gonna cut you off. The Philistines are attempting to cut the air of the land off of the land.

All of that blessing of God, the provision of all the cattle and all the agriculture, they're trying to destroy it, to undermine it. And so again, you can see this dynamic of the godly line, the line of flourishing and blessing, creational blessing, and the way that the line of the serpent, the power, you know, the prince of the power of the air, how he seeks to destroy that which God blesses, that which God creates.

Notice the emphasis here. They stopped up. They destroyed all of the wells. All of the wells. They're trying to cut the promise line off. Digging a well, at this point in the ancient Near East, was essentially laying a claim on land.

How do you claim land? By digging a well or by burying someone. And Abraham had done both. Right? He buried his wife in the land in the caves of Machpelah and he dug several wells, some of which are here being backfilled by the Philistine.

Kind of, you know, tongue-in-cheek, I guess, the Philistines. Makes you think of them a little differently. The Philistines filling in the wells of the patriarchs. Rather than recognize the rightful claim of Isaac, they fill up the well, try to make it seem as if it hadn't been dug, and that would be like going and finding the property claim and tearing it up.

Oh, sorry, we don't have it on record that this land has any claim. And Abimelech says to Isaac, verse 16,.

Just go away.

Get away from us. You're much mightier than we are. So they take his father's wells, they fill them up, and then as he continues to be blessed and go from strength to strength, eventually Abimelech comes to him and says, just go away.

Go away from us. You're numerous. You're mightier than we are. And so it's because of numerical strength, this almost has military overtones. The next time we see it in significance is actually in Exodus.

This is the reason that Pharaoh expels the Israelites. It's because they're powerful. They're numerous. And so he seeks to enslave them and treat them cruelly. They've become mighty. But look at the response of Isaac to this maltreatment.

Verses 17 and 18. Then Isaac departed from there and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father.

For the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. You can picture them writing out the condolence cards after the calling hours while they're also holding shovels in their hands. We're so sorry for your loss, Isaac.

Let's go back fill those wells. He has no rightful claim in our land. Twice the name Abraham appears here. Twice the valid claim is reinforced. Abraham his father after the death of Abraham. Again, the whole point, the whole emphasis is on Isaac taking the rightful place as covenant head now of the Abrahamic Covenant.

But notice his demeanor. When the king says, go away. He doesn't take out his concealed carry and threaten back.

What does he do? He retreats.

Get away from here. This is my land. These are the wells that my father dug. I have a right here. I've been wronged here.

Go away. What does he do? He goes away.

He leaves Gerar and he settles into the valley of Gerar. Instead of fighting for the property that was rightfully his, he retreats. Now, is this a lack of faith? Is this fearful Isaac coming to the fore again?

Depending on how the rest of the chapter goes, this might just be another example of a failure to trust in the Lord. Or is it that Isaac now, in a profound way, is beginning to actually trust the Lord and is recovering the footsteps of his father Abraham, realizing that the Lord will bring this about in due time and therefore he only has to patiently wait upon and seek the Lord.

And that perhaps, as we'll trace his journey now from Gerar to the valley of Gerar and and beyond, he's actually going from wandering to.

From Wandering to Seeking the Face of God

Seeking.

To tilt my hat just a little. In other words, this is not Isaac the coward, Isaac the man-fearer. This is actually Isaac displaying, I think, a virtue of trust in the Lord as he seeks to maintain peace with the neighbors in the land, knowing that he is rightful heir and God will bring it about.

So, on the surface of things, he's essentially cutting and running. He doesn't want there to be open hostility or conflict. He has enough problems. It's famine. He's got a lot more animals now and a lot more servants and there's a lot more mouse to feed.

And so, rather than duke it out, he's just gonna go and dig up new wells. And God blesses him as he does that. As he goes into the valley of Gerar and finds new places to graze and new wells to dig, lo and behold, there's water.

Lo and behold, there's pasture. God is blessing him as he goes. And so, Isaac is learning to trust in the Lord, not only because he was blessed there in Gerar, but as he goes, he's being blessed. Wherever he goes, the Lord's blessing is following him.

So, this is reinforcing his desire to sojourn back to the place he had left. We see a principle played out here. Not necessarily a popular principle, I think, for our circles. And in other circles, other evangelical circles, it's a little too popular of a principle.

But nevertheless, we see it here in chapter 26. We see this virtue, this patient willingness to bear injustice.

That's what we see.

With Isaac in Genesis 26. We see him living out 1 Peter 2, 19 and 20. This is commendable. If for conscience toward God, one endures grief and suffers wrongfully. This is commendable. Isaac is here in Genesis 26, enduring grief and suffering wrongfully.

For what credit is it, if when you're beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. Isaac is doing something commendable before God, being treated spitefully and unjustly by the Philistines.

He does not insist on his rights. He has other things to pursue, and he trusts the Lord with those wells. And so, we see this principle, Romans 12, 18, if possible, so far as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men.

Even the Philistines, who are backfilling the wells that belong to your father, that laid a claim on that corner of the land. When our ways are pleasing to God, as the Proverbs says, He makes even our enemies at peace with us.

And we'll see that by the conclusion of the chapter, God has done that to Isaac. 1 Peter 3, 8, 9. All of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous, never returning evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this, so that you will inherit the blessing.

Yeah, that's Isaac. He knows he's going to inherit the blessing. And so, he has some capital here. I don't have to fight for it now. I know it's mine. And by trying to live at peace in this way, I will actually inherit the blessing.

The meek.

Inherit the land. Blessed are the meek, for they inherit the earth. Another thing we learn here is something that perhaps Isaac didn't realize for a long time. On the surface of things, if you could go to the dinner table at night, Isaac and Rebekah sitting there, you know, dark circles under their eyes, they're losing sleep over it.

They're really stressed out about these Philistines, and the nuisance, and the injustice. And they have to comfort each other, and console each other, and pray about these things. Perhaps Isaac didn't realize it in that stressful time, that the Lord was actually using this opposition to guide him.

That it wasn't just the Philistines making life difficult, though that's what the Philistines were doing. It was God ultimately moving Isaac back to the place he had departed from. Remember, when the famine came, he left that altar place, he left Lehiroi and began to dwell southward.

And now God is causing this opposition and conflict to drive him back to that place that he had left. In other words, God is creating a course of restoration. He's bringing the wanderer back, and he's using Philistines unjustly treating him to do so.

And so this is a Christian insight that God uses such difficulty, hindrance, even hostile opposition, to guide us back to spiritual restoration. The Philistines filling the wells is part of God's divine guidance.

And so we read a conclusion, really. They keep digging wells, they keep digging wells, they keep digging wells, and every time they get a well and they've gone a little bit further north, the Philistines are there to gobble up the water.

And so he starts naming these wells. You can almost sense the frustration. Well, I'll call this well hatred. Well, I'll call this well, and it's like, I'm just gonna call these wells the abuses that they are.

Verse 19 and following, Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found a well of running water there, living water, running water. But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, the water is ours.

And so he called the name of the well Esek, because they quarreled with him, quarrel. And they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name Sitna, meaning accusation.

Then we read verse 22. He moved from there and dug another well, and they finally did not quarrel over it. So he called it Rehovoth. Space, you know, room. And he said, now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

Please notice how Isaac is beginning to understand the providence. When he's digging well after well, and the Philistines keep coming, he's not, he's not becoming more enraged, more frustrated, more willing to to march back down, to create a conflict, to use all this newfound strength and wealth, and all these servants that he can raise up by the sword.

He's not willing to do any of that. Why? He just keeps moving northward, digging new wells, until he finally is far away enough to dig a well that the Lord allows him to keep. And he says, the Lord has made room for us.

The Lord will make us fruitful in this land. So as he's journeying northward, his faith is being grown. He's recognizing that God is the one who allows these wells to provide water. God is the one who's used these Philistines in this perhaps distressing way, but it's been part of his guidance, and he recognizes the Lord is the one that makes room for us in the land.

The parallel between Isaac's life and Abraham's life here is very encouraging, because the Lord was also restoring Abraham as he came out of Egypt. Remember Abraham, when he entered into the, the promised land borders, how he built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord.

It was a restoration from backsliding, and we see that with Isaac here. He was in this land of Gerar, and he was deceitful and distrusting, and the fear of man was burning hot, but here he is being blessed and digging wells, and he recognizes the Lord's making a space for us.

The Lord makes us fruitful. In other words, he's gone from trial to blessing. And he has all the hallmarks of it. He's patient under hostile oppression. He perseveres through difficulty. This is how you know you've gone from trial to blessing.

But also, secondly, you can see how he's gone from wandering to actually seeking, beginning in verses 22 and 23, right? So picking up where we just left off, he moved from there, dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it.

He called its name Rehoboth because he said, now the Lord has made room for us. We will be fruitful in the land.

So here he is.

He's in Rehoboth. The well is theirs. There's no opposition. Shouldn't this be where he dwells? Isn't this what they wanted? They have a well. There's no hostility. Why not just stay here at Rehoboth?

But what do we read in verse 23? He went up from there to Beersheba. Why is this detail recorded? If he was simply looking for a place that wouldn't be contested, where he could enjoy the resource of water in the midst of famine, he would stay at Rehoboth, but he doesn't do that.

He keeps pressing back to Beersheba. And so the wandering of Isaac takes us from Gerar, where he failed, through the valley of Gerar, to Rehoboth, where he has success, but that's just superficial. He's actually seeking something more.

And he goes to Beersheba. Beersheba, of course, is the place where Abraham, in chapter 21, encountered El Olam, the eternal God. And he dug a well there. We read in verse 24 what Isaac was seeking. The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of your father Abraham.

Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for my servant Abraham's sake. So immediately after, he leaves Rehoboth and keeps seeking, not seeking water now, not seeking a distance from the oppressor, but actually seeking the Lord.

In Beersheba, the Lord appears to him. And we get the sense that Isaac was seeking this encounter with God. And this is going to be where he dwells now. Now he's been restored. He knew the Lord was going to make a space, but until he encountered the presence of God, he chose not to dwell in the place where his immediate needs were met.

Please hear that, brothers and sisters. Until he met with the presence of God, he chose not to situate himself where immediate needs were being met. The irony here, speaking of reversals, is that the whole reason he had left this area was because it seemed like there was nothing here for him.

It was a losing proposition in a year of famine. And if we head southward, there'll be so much more. But by the time he got to the south, it took away a lot. And it wasn't until he turned back toward the Lord that he found blessing and restoration.

And it turned out that the very place he had left because it seemed so desolate was the place with the greatest blessing of all. It was the place of God's presence. This night theophany, Isaac's encounter with the presence of God, is really one of comfort.

Not only does God allow this difficulty in his life, these back-filled wells, to slowly but surely guide him all the way back to Beersheba. And you see the faith that is being woven in Isaac's life because he doesn't dwell where his needs are met, which was the whole reason he ever left this place to start.

But now his faith has grown. He's seeking more than water and pasture. He's seeking the face of God. And God answers and God reveals himself. And he reveals himself really to console him, to comfort him.

I am the God of your father Abraham. This is beautiful.

Do you know what he says.

When he reveals himself at the beginning of 26? I will be your God. I will be your God. And then of course he departs and he stumbles and he fails. And as God is now restoring him here and he's seeking the face of God having been restored,.

What does God say?

I am your God. The promise went from I will be to I am. You will have my presence to enjoy my presence now. I am your God. I am with you. This is Emmanuel. This is God with Isaac. And we recognize something that is vital, not only for Isaac to understand, but for any believer that we cannot mistake the blessings of God for the presence of God, which is a mistake that many people make.

Being made of the flesh and dwelling as we do in modern life, we often mistake the blessings of God with the presence of God. In other words, we often are content to pitch our tent at Rehoboth. I have enough of the Lord here.

I'm not in Gerar. I'm here. I've escaped the real pinches of pressure and I'm having my needs met. And this is what I need. This is what I should seek. Please learn from Isaac that the blessings of God are not equivalent to the presence of God.

Isaac presses on until he can commune with God. And when he finally encounters the Lord, that is where he dwells. That is where he stays. It might be arid. It might have all the signs of famine. It might seem like Gerar is always more promising.

Egypt's always more promising to the Christian mind. But a Christian who understands what's being communicated here in Genesis 26 knows that when you encounter the presence of the living God, the deserts bring forth streams of living water.

It's the difference that communing with God in an arid place can make. And so no wonder God meets with him to say, Many times we're more concerned about the blessings of God than we are about the presence of God.

Physical, material, relational blessings will drive us out of the place of God's presence down into Gerar and the byways of Egypt. It's someone who's mature, who's been seasoned by trials and restorations in their life who knows that anything less than an encounter with God, anything less than communing with him, than recognizing and seeing the fruit of his presence in your life is a losing proposition.

And so really, verses 23 to 25 are the whole key to my mind of chapter 26. Isaac had been shaped by circumstances, and circumstances led almost all of his decisions at the beginning of the chapter. The famine led a decision to leave the place where God was present.

And then in Gerar, the circumstances of all these soldiers and the king led him to be a deceiver and to lie and jeopardize his wife. Circumstances had been shaping his decisions, but on the way back, we don't see that, do we?

Circumstances are not shaping his decision to press on to Beersheba. In fact, everything we have is given in reverse order. Look at verse 25. He built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord, and then he pitched his tent there, and then Isaac's servants dug a well.

Do you know what he had been doing for most of the chapter? Digging a well first, and then trying to pitch a tent, and maybe then calling on the name of the Lord. But look at how the priorities have reversed.

Altar first, and then when we encounter God's presence, this is where we're going to be. And then we'll look for those physical needs. Then we'll start digging wells. This is an illustration of seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness first, and then digging a well and trusting your daily necessities will be added to you.

And this is what restoration looks like. It looks like God allowing issues and circumstances and opposition and difficulty in life to guide you back toward him. But not only the difficulty, but also those blessings, that goodness that is designed by God to lead you to repentance.

As we said last week, the right hand and the left hand of his providence in your life, both blessing and trial, guiding you ultimately back to him, molding you and shaping you into conformity to Christ.

And so mark the progress in the life of Isaac. He's gone from a fearful man, a man moved by his immediate needs and circumstances, to a man shaped by a failure and a faith that has been restored. Where he settles for nothing less than the presence of God.

Brothers and sisters, Philistines may be filling up your wells. There may be hostilities and trials and difficulties in your life even this morning. Things that fill you with dread, things in your relationships that are painful.

You look and you just say, there's nothing I want from this. There's nothing but opposition and difficulty. This is not a place where God's going to work. And we learn here, this is exactly where God works.

This is how he makes his people go from wandering to actually seeking. And Isaac went from a wanderer to a seeker. And so the last reversal in verses 26 through 33 is from famine to feast. The whole chapter opens with a famine, but it ends with a feast.

Famine to Feast: The Witness of Beersheba

And we see this spiritual work in Isaac's life begin to bear fruit horizontally. Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzath, one of his friends, and Phicol, the commander of his army. And Isaac said to them, why have you come to me?

Since you hate me and have even sent me away from you. Notice what they say. We have certainly seen that the Lord is with you. So he said, let there be an oath between us, between you and us. Let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm since we've not touched you.

And since we've done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace. Oh yeah, nothing to you but good as we filled every well you tried to draw water from. But what do they recognize? You are now blessed of the Lord.

The appearance of Abimelech is a reminder of just how far Isaac has come. Isaac went in destroying, tarnishing, running through the mud, the testimony of God's promises. But as a result of his restoration, he's become a very vibrant testimony of the Lord's promises.

And it's recognized even by the king. He travels all the way to Beersheba to say, you are now blessed of the Lord. It's become apparent. It's become obvious. Do you remember what we read last week? When he was in the midst of his sin and his deceit, the king was peeking through the window and then he calls him out on it.

It's quite obvious that she's your sister. In other words, it's quite obvious that you're in sin. But now what's obvious? We have certainly seen the Lord is with you. So we go from God in a theophany saying, I will be with you, to now the testimony of that theophany.

We can see that the Lord is with you. And ultimately, this is what we want in the Christian life. As a result of having these reversals play out, of going from trial to blessing, of going from wandering and backsliding to actually seeking and finding the Lord, we want to have this same response.

We want to have a feast with those that are observing us. We want them to confess, we've seen that the Lord is with you. Who else could live their life like this? Who else could find such joy and hope and peace in the midst of what you've endured, what you've been through?

Why do you have this song in your heart? Why do you have this way of living your life? We've seen that God is with you. And we confess, you are now blessed of the Lord. So Abimelech has come all this way to be a testimony, I think, the cherry on the top of God's work in Isaac's life.

God is confirming his place in the covenant out of the mouth of a Philistine. A Gentile prophet, a sinful man has come to confess that Isaac is the blessed one of the Lord. And what we see here is Isaac realizing there's people in the land that hate me.

And they've treated me unjustly. And all the work that my father did, they kicked it down and caved it in and ran it over. And they told me to get out of here. They wanted me to live on the margins. They were envious of anything I had going for me.

And they sought to ruin me. And it's a lot like what we read out of what was prayed out of Psalm 3, isn't it? Hostility and opposition at almost every turn. So what gives Isaac that grace to be able to tactfully move away, tactfully avoid conflict, somehow gracefully maintain a positive witness in the midst of that kind of heat and hatred?