The Bent-Knee Time

A person’s character is revealed most by their sober second thought. An impulse may be bad or good; a deliberate purpose is worse or better; it can strengthen or check the impulse. Esau was impulsive, a bundle of impulses, sometimes good, sometimes weak or bad. God couldn’t use him. Jacob was the stronger character, a cool, deliberate thinker. That made his badness worse, and his goodness better, when at last he yielded his life to God.