Good morning and welcome to the first full week of August. Usually one of the weeks you don’t want to be anywhere near Texas. Hot, hot, hot. We had a bit of rain on Saturday and it softened the heat a bit but don’t let it fool you, it won’t stay. Growing up in Texas, I guess I’m somewhat accustomed to the heat, but while in China I learned about a whole new type of heat. 95 degrees and about the same level of humidity. It was just plain brutal. You had no choice but to take 3 showers a day. Oh man was it sticky hot! So all that to say, believe it or not, I actually prefer the Texas heat. Well, there you go, I never thought I’d say that.
I’m still battling a bit of jet lag even a full week later. My body clock is very predictable, and it just takes time for it to get back in whack. The last several mornings I’ve popped up at 3am and I just roll with it. The good thing is that the early morning is actually my favorite time of the day. My peak productive time is early mornings and so it just allows me to get more done and at a higher level. The only problem? Come about 2pm I’m totally wiped. I really shouldn’t take a nap if I want to right the ship, but have you ever seen a nice comfy sofa right under a ceiling fan with the A/C going at around 2? I’m telling ya, the call of the sofa has been winning every afternoon!
This morning we get the treat of looking at chapter 29 of Genesis and what an important (although tough) lesson it holds for us. The whole lesson can be summed up with Galatians 6:7-8
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
We last saw Jacob on the run in chapter 28. At the behest of his mom they had passed him off as Esau and tricked the birthright of the family from their dear old half-blind dad, Isaac. As a result, Esau is in a murderous rage and Jacob has no choice but to flee for his life. On his escape, God appears to him and he continues on to where we find him today in chapter 29. For Jacob and all of his trickery, he is about to meet his match. He is about to meet good ol’ Uncle Laban. And Uncle Laban is going to take him to the school of trickery. You see, you reap what you sow and at the end of this chapter Jacob is going to have a much different perspective I’m sure, about his historical trickery and its costs.
So, Jacob strolls into a new town to the east of his home and he runs right into a situation of love at first sight, he sees Rachel. He follows her home like a puppy dog in love and meets Uncle Laban. After a month of lounging around and making google eyes at Rachel, school starts and Laban offers him a job, kinda. He offers Jacob to pick his own wage and Jacob chooses to work on Laban’s farm for 7 years in exchange for the hand of Rachel. But on the day of the anniversary of the 7 years, things go less than ideal for Jacob. Laban throws a big feast, I imagine there was quite a bit of wine involved as it normally was in a wedding celebration, and Jacob wakes up with Leah, the older, less attractive sister. What? I can only imagine the wheels spinning in Jacob’s head that next morning. Life lesson indeed. At this moment Jacob got his degree in trickery and Uncle Laban was the professor. Laban then offers him Rachel again, but only after another 7 years of hard labor. Ouch. So, Jacob invests 14 years of back breaking work and gets both sisters. A good deal? Read on.
Now we see a lot of polygamy in the Old Testament, but folks, God never approved of it. It might have been a custom at the time and is definitely in the Bible, but God does not approve. How do we know? Every time you see it take place, you quickly see the trouble and chaos ensue. The love triangle just does not work. God is a God of peace and where you see a lack of peace, you’ll find a lack of God. And right out of the gate here we see problems. We’re told in Gen 29:30 that “Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.” And as a result of this in Gen 29:31 we see that “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.” Jacob has his hands full with this situation indeed. One unhappy wife is one thing, Jacob has two.
There is a bittersweet side note in this story, love. We see Jacob possess a love for Rachel that is straight out of a Hallmark movie. We’re told that the seven years he worked for her hand “seemed like but a few days because of the love he had for her.” (Gen 29:20) It was a great love indeed and it lasted in its genuineness for the rest of their lives. But on the flip side of that coin was Leah. Poor Leah, my heart breaks for her. She was sucked into this situation by her conniving dad, she never asked for it. Jacob loved Rachel and just had no use for Leah. It’s so troubling to even see the word “hate” used for how Jacob handled her. The Lord allowed Leah to have children while keeping them from Rachel, but even this did not allow her to earn the love that she so greatly desired from her husband, Jacob. There is not much more heart-breaking than an honest, deep love that is not returned.
We could almost insert ourselves into this story today. If we just adjusted a few things to today’s modern customs, we could make the same mistakes. You see we walk with little or no integrity or honesty, act out of pride and selfishness and treat others with no respect and then we make our way on down the road thinking ourselves quite the clever ones indeed. Surely our actions will go unnoticed right? We can sneak this stuff by God, right? Nope. Just like Jacob, the chickens will come home to roost. He had tricked his father into thinking he was the elder when he was the younger and he ends up thinking he was getting the younger sister when he got the older. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
Today if you plant goodness you will reap goodness. If you sow peace today, you will be picking peace later. If you plant the seeds of unconditional love in your life, you will be enjoying a bountiful harvest of deep love in your future. What a glorious promise from the Lord. But my friends the opposite rings true and you cannot escape the promises of God. Do not be deceived. If you sow hate you will be hated. If you sow lies, you will suffer at the hands of being lied to. If you plant a field of selfishness and pride, you will be overrun with the exact same harvest growing all around you. I pray today that this verse will be absorbed into your heart and will live with you all of your days. I personally have seen this fact cost me much in my life, I have reaped what I have sown. As you walk this world today, grab hand fulls of love, goodness, peace, truth, gentleness, and patience and sow them all around you. God gives us all the seed we need, take hold of it and cast it freely in your life. Then my friends, as the days wear on, you will bask in the pure goodness of your harvest.
God’s rich blessings to you today as you walk in the light and let it shine into a dark world.
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