In FEAR and in AWE (1)

I was reading Malachi today, and this Book reminded me to fear and be in awe of our God Almighty - praise God! Here's a few reasons that triggered this reminder:

"I (ie. God) have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated" (Mal 1: 2,3). My first reaction is: what has Esau done to deserve to be 'hated', and what has Jacob done to be loved? I flip to Genesis, and Jacob seems to be the devious & mischevious one. After Esau's hard work he is famished and asks Jacob for his stew. But Jacob is the one that takes advantage of Esau's starving state and makes a deal with Esau to exchange stew with birthright (Gen 25: 29-34). Later, Jacob lies and misleads in order to take Esau's blessing from his father (Gen 27). It's illogical - shouldn't Jacob be the one "hated", and Esau, the one "loved" by God? Doesn't this passage refute the claim that God is love?

But, perhaps, it's not a matter of what Esau and Jacob has done. Perhaps it's not a matter of man's desire or effort. Rather, it may be about God's sovereign choice and mercy (Ro 9: 10-16ish). That He, because He is God - the God Almighty, gets to choose whom He should have compassion with, and whom He should have mercy on. Because He is the Great God, He gets to choose who are His people, and He gets to choose whose land He will destroy (in this case, Esau's: see Mal 1:3-5ish). Knowing how holy and sovereign God is, made me: wow...

(For better readability I'm going to post (2) in the next post) :)