Blog by Rachel Campbell
When it seems like God is taking His time to answer your prayer or come through on something promised, are you ever tempted to help Him? Do you ever try to give Him a “push start”, or even get things started on your own?
Let’s take a glimpse into a not so great moment in Rebekah’s life. It’s not Rebekah’s best moment, but it can really teach us something if we let it. This story is one that I have really taken note of for my own personal life. Rebekah wasn’t necessarily a bad person. She was just a woman who had been given a word from the Lord about her younger son, Jacob. That he would be the one to inherit the birthright instead of his older brother Esau. God really had promised her this truth. She wasn’t making it up, the scripture says that God spoke this to her. Rebecca’s downfall happened because she wouldn’t trust God to carry out the promise He had spoken. WOW.
Genesis 27:5-10
5 Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back,6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau,7 ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.’8 Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: 9 Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it.10 Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.
I think about my life. I think about the many whispers and promises God has planted inside of me. I know that as a busy woman, I want to get started on my long running list of things to make happen. To be brutally honest, sometimes it feels as though God is taking way more time to do what He said He would do and I get caught up trying to “help Him”. It’s so easy to come up with creative ideas on how to make God’s promises and plans unfold in a more efficient and timely manner isn’t it?
So here’s Rebekah. A girl just like us. Her man is on his deathbed and she overhears him telling their oldest son to go out hunting, prepare a feast out of his killings, and bring it to him so that he can give him his blessing or birthright. When she hears this going on from the other room, she gets really anxious because in the natural it looks like God is running out of time. So she grabs Jacob and basically gives him a new inheritance. She passes down her ability to deceive. Without using words, she teaches him how to not trust God, but how to work the system. She goes into great detail about how to make his arms feel hairy like his brother’s, how to trick his big brother into surrendering his birthright, how to make his father’s favorite crock pot meal. I mean, if this happened today, it would be a perfect story for the TV show American Greed. This scheme was elaborate!
Rebekah made the huge error of carrying out God’s plans without the blessing and grace of God over it. That sobers me. I don’t want to push so hard for the promise that I get there without the favor of God. If His blessing and presence isn’t on me when I get there, then really, what is the point? I don’t want to be a woman who responds in fear, worrying that I am going to miss out on the things God has for me just because they aren’t happening the way that I pictured. In my striving, I don’t want to somehow miss Him.
When we carry out God’s plan for us or for others, without letting Him do it, these are the things that happen:
1. We ruin it
What was meant for greatness was ruined and both of Rebekah’s sons had to lie with great setbacks because of their mom’s inability to
just trust God’s perfect plan.
2. We miss the miracles
God always carries out His word and the best part of our walk with Him are living out the moments where He proves His faithfulness and
makes a way where we just couldn’t even see a way!
3. We effect other people’s faith
We need to let the people we love (our friends, kids and spouses) go on their own faith journey and trust that God loves them more than
we do. He will be faithful. He will take care of them. He will take care of us.
Philippians 4:6-7 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.