Another serious problem about the way Jacob's life story is taught and preached is its lack of any instructional value. If you say that everything Jacob did was an example of how bad he was and God just picked him in spite of that badness, thus showing election by grace alone, you've just done away with any practical instructional value that we can take away with us. It also contradicts the election message of the New Testament, which is not "You can be bad and deceptive and a fraud all your life, and God will still bless you." Sorry, but if that's your understanding of Jacob's story, you have really missed it.
Jacob was elected by God to be a man of faith, and he was. He stood by faith against Laban instead of retaliating or using deception. It was Laban, who used deception, who demonstrated lack of faith by having to resort to deception. It was Jacob who trusted God and did not have to resort to deception the entire time he was with Laban. Jacob was persistent. Even as he aged and was about to face Esau, who was coming to meet him with several hundred soldiers, Jacob did not resort to violence or deception. He considered it entirely possible that Esau was coming to kill him and his entire household, yet he did not waver at God's instruction to him, which was to return to Canaan.
What did he do? He wrestled. Jacob was a man of prayer. He faced what appeared to be certain death for himself and disaster for his family, yet he did not flee, nor did he hire an army to protect him. He wrestled with "a man," and like he did with Esau decades before, he knew the value of the Blessing - it meant everything. Jacob believed that the Blessing would protect him from the power of death that resided in the hand of his own brother, Esau. And it did. Therein is the power of faith.
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