Searching for the Joy - 3

Ge 31:27 "Why did you make a secret of your flight, not giving me word of it, so that I might have sent you away with joy and songs, with melody and music?"

Laban pretends they would have been treated with respect at parting. Matthew Henry in his Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible notes, “It is common for bad men, when they are disappointed in their malicious projects, to pretend that they designed nothing but what was kind and fair. When they cannot do the mischief they intended, they are loth it should be thought that they ever did intend it.”

Now where can I find the true joy in this?
This strange meeting between Jacob and Laban ended with a mutual treaty of sorts. It would be on this journey that Jacob would get a new name, a name that his country bears to this day, and it was the beginning of Jacob being reconciled to his brother Esau.

In order for the new to come the old must give way. Sometimes the journey is hard and I am pursued from behind and threatened from in front. In spite of all this God seeks me that I may know Him, even if He must wrestle with me to do it.