On Genesis 28:15 (and washing machines)

By Pat Pagulayan

I often see Genesis 28:15 as a summary of God’s three great promises to me: Psalm 121, Isaiah 41:10, and Jeremiah 29:11. It serves as God’s constant reassurance to me that He is always with me, watching over me wherever I go, whatever I do - even as I slumber. And that through all these things, He will never leave me until He has done what He has promised me.

And oh dear, God really never leaves until He’s done with me.

In the past couple of weeks (maybe even months), I feel like I’ve been thrown into a washing machine, just being tumbled left, right, and centre. And just when I thought that all is good, at peace, and that I’ve successfully gone through a difficult “cleaning process”, another one begins (you know that brief pause your washing machine makes before it moves on to the next cycle, yeah, something like that). It drains my strength; it breaks me down; it sucks the abundant energy that I have out of me; it makes me feel weak and helpless; it confuses me, drives me crazy, and shakes my very core.

And it’s a beautiful process - something I’d go through cycle and cycle and cycle again.

Yes, it does make me suffer. But the amazing thing is I suffer knowing that He who makes me go through all these things is a God who only has my best interest in His heart. That He who is doing all the washing, is not someone who’s outside just pressing the buttons, but is the soap and water that is with me in the cycle as well, never stopping until He has soften, broken, and removed all those stubborn stains.

I tell you, I am one tough and stubborn stain to remove, and God is working on me full-time, day and night, 24/7. And like a layer of oil in a stain that repels water, my flesh is fighting and resisting, latching on to me, opposing the Spirit. It is the flesh that is causing all this pain, heaviness, mental and emotional turmoil. A battlefield in my head.

One thing I am learning through this process is that I cannot win this without God. If you put a stained linen in a washing machine and run it without soap nor water, the stain remains, becomes harder, and tougher to remove. In this process I am learning to trust God more instead of my own “water-less” and “soap-less” wisdom - to trust the God who is always with us and never leaves us until He has done what He has promised for us.

Come, let us tumble God’s washing together.