This week in small group we are learning about Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob. The stories about Rebekah favoring Jacob always bugged me. I don’t understand how a parent can favor one child over another, so it really bothers me to read the part where Rebekah helps Jacob betray his brother and trick his father into giving Jacob the blessing Esau was suppose to receive.

Well, today Genesis 25:21-23 finally clicked for me. I can’t tell you how many times I have read this passage and totally did not realize this.

Isaac pleaded with the Lord to give Rebekah a child because she was childless. So the Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, and his wife became pregnant with twins. But the two children struggled wtih each other in her womb. So she went to ask the Lord about it. “Why is this happening to me?” she asked. And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two rival nations. One nation will be stronger than the other; the descendants of your older son will serve the descendants of your younger son.”

It was God’s will for Esau’s line to be servants to Jacob’s line. God chose to tell Rebekah this ahead of time, and everything that happened was a part of this prophecy coming true. Would Rebekah have favored Jacob had she not known about this? Did she treat him better because she knew Jacob would prosper more? Or did she really just have a better relationship because their personalities got along better?

Then, later on in Genesis 37 we learn about Joseph who is Jacob’s favorite son. This to me seems like a pattern starting in this family line. Joseph is Jacob’s favorite, and Jacob was Rebekah’s favorite. Because Jacob favored Joseph so much the rest of his siblings were jealous, but Joseph goes even further…

Genesis 37:5-8

One night Joseph had a dream and promptly reported the details to his brothers, causing them to hate him even more. “Listen to this dream,” he announced. “We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain. My bundle stood up, and then your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before it!” “So you are going to be our king, are you?” his brothers taunted. And they hated him all the more for his dream and what he had said.

Again, God showed one of his servants a prophecy that would come true. In this situation I feel like Joseph pushed his luck though. This was very important information God shared with him, but sharing it with his brothers got him into trouble. I don’t know if it was God’s will for Joseph to have to endure so much after this dream, or if God simply used these situations and still held true to his word about Joseph becoming so important.

These passages really made me think about my own life. The day Tim and I met I felt God telling me that Tim is the guy I am going to spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t really believe it at first, so that night when I prayed I wrote my prayer down and said, “God, I really think I’m crazy, but just wanted to write this to see what happens in the future.” And come to find out, I heard God correctly. That day I didn’t even have a romantic attraction to Tim, I thought he was a nice guy, and we got along well, but come on, it was our first day to even meet!

What got me in trouble with knowing this, was after a little over a year of dating I started to really believe that Tim and I would get married, so I pushed things a little bit. I tried to see how selfish I could be, how much time I could claim of his to see if we would really end up together forever. Well, I ended up pushing it too far, which ended in an 8 month separation, and God working really hard in both of our lives growing us into the people we needed to be in order to have a marriage, and thankfully God prepared us for each other through the long and hard process.

God sticks to his promises. We need to make sure we are hearing the voice of God, and not any other voices. And when God does speak to us, we need to be grateful and not push our chances.