The very first sentence. Rachel envied her sister. Well this isn’t going to lead to anything good. She blames Jacob for her bareness and we see the only time where Jacob becomes angry with his beloved wife. While her blame begs the question, why in the world does she blame Jacob rather than God, we read further along in the story that she isn’t devoted to God when she steals her father’s idols. Just as Sarah, Rachel takes matters into her own hands. Leah follows suit. The battle wages. While Leah bares the most children, Rachel bares the beloved Joseph. We see that Jacob follows his parents’ actions of playing favorites when he places Rachel and Joseph behind the rest of his caravan to give them the greatest protection from Esau. Speaking of Esau, what joy it brings to see these two brothers reconciled. There is so much covered in this day that it is not possible to cover every scene. I want to devote my time, yet again, to what we as women can learn from the women of today’s reading. Leah and Rachel. Sisters divided by the love of a man and trickery of their father. While God does create the nation of Israel from the twelve children these women and their servants bare Jacob, no good comes from their actions. They allow their jealousy to destroy their relationship. Think about times in your life where jealousy has caused you to take matters into your own hands rather than giving that feeling to God and allowing Him to replace it with truth. Oh sure, they experienced temporary satisfaction, but it was never lasting because they had to continue to out-do one another. One of the greatest lies we believe is that things will be different for us. What we see from the honesty about humanity recorded in God’s Word is that the struggles and failures then are still the same for us today. The results are also the same. There is nothing new under the sun. We become jealous. Jealous of the life, the possessions, the spouse, the job, the children of another woman. Our jealousy clouds our judgment and we act impulsively. Then when it all falls apart, we throw a fit. It’s hard to admit when we are wrong. Jealousy will never be removed from our lives unless we find the root of the problem. The root of the problem is simply trust. We do not trust God. We do not trust that His plan is good. We do not trust that He will work out the details. We do not trust that our good will be as good as her good. We do not trust His timing. We do not trust what He has for us so we begin to want what she has. We are not content with what He has given to us because we are too consumed with what she has. Then the jealousy takes root in our hearts. Jealousy weeds out God and our own plans take His place. We begin to scheme, manipulate, whine and deceive. The greatest deception is our own. We deceive ourselves into believing that if we could just get what she has, we will be happy. In the process of attempting to get what we think should be ours, what we think will make us happy, we do not see that we are only destroying those around us. What we are left with is not happiness but heartache. But we go through the cycle again because we have too much pride to admit that we blew it, that we were wrong. Maybe if we just keep trying, it will eventually work. But it never does. As for God, His way is perfect. Ours never is. My prayer for today is that you and I are humble enough to admit that we are utterly foolish without Him. If there is any jealousy taking root in our hearts may we be wise enough to give it to Him rather than allow it to grow.
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