Life Can Be Messy - Love Paves The Way to Victory

The enmeshed relationships we get ourselves into can be quite messy.  This story, from selected verses in Genesis, exposes deceptive hearts, competing relationships, and sacrificial love.  Let's learn to live with integrity, liberate those we love from competition by providing a love that secures, and deny ourselves in our love for others.  Who knows, perhaps a Joseph will emerge.

Gen 29:16  Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
Gen 29:17  Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful.
Gen 29:18  Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel."
Gen 29:19  Laban said, "It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me."
Gen 29:20  So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.
Gen 29:21  Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her."
Gen 29:22  So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.
Gen 29:23  But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her.
Gen 29:25  When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?"
Gen 29:26  Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.
Gen 29:27  Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work."
Gen 29:28  And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.
Gen 29:30  Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
Gen 30:22  Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb.
Gen 30:23  She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, "God has taken away my disgrace."
Gen 30:24  She named him Joseph, and said, "May the LORD add to me another son."
Gen 46:19 The sons of Jacob's wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.



Observations:

• It is a messy thing to have 2 women in your life
• The first woman may conspire and deceive to take advantage of you, and your resources
• The second woman, the one who owns your heart, is worth working for - even for 7 years.
• The fruit of a loving relationship may be a great leader - Joseph
• When all is said and done, the man may walk with a limp [Jacob]- yet be blessed by God
• The man may be transformed in the process from a deceiver to a limping lover - broken, yet close to God

Considerations:

• Do you see yourself in the story?
• Are you a Jacob, needing to shed the comparison with your burly brother Esau?
• Are you content to wrestle with God for a long period, and accept that it may change you forever?
• Will you work for your Rachel?
• Will you hope in the fruit of such a love, investing together in a Joseph initiative?
• Will Rachel rest in the love of her Jacob, or compare herself with the attributes of others? 

 "We're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday.” Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook