Jacob was left alone

There is peculiar force in the words, “Jacob was left alone.” Thus it is with all who have been trained in the school of God; they have been brought into the stillness and solitude of the Divine presence, there to view themselves and their ways, where alone they can be rightly viewed. Had Jacob continued amidst the bleating of the sheep, and the lowering of the oxen, he could not by any means have enjoyed the same calm and sober view of himself and his past course, as he was led to in the secret of the presence of God. There is no part of a man’s history so important as when he is thus led into the solitude of the Divine presence; it is there he understands things which were before dark and inexplicable. There, he can judge of himself, and see its proper nothingness and vileness.

Jacob was let into the secret of human weakness, and therefore felt that it must be divine strength or nothing. He thinks no more of his godly plans and arrangements, his presents to appease Esau. No, he stands withered and trembling before the one who had humbled him, and cries, “I will not let Thee go until Thou bless me.” He comes to the end of flesh. He clings to Christ as the poor shipwrecked mariner clings to the rock. All self-confidence is gone, all expectations from self and world blasted.

- C.H. Mackintosh

Found that this speaks to me in the midst of mugging for my papers in library these past 2 weeks. Notwithstanding some snorings, overnight in school is really quiet and helps me to focus. In a way, this self-enforced period of being left alone does aid in helping one think clearer.