Genesis 30:22,23 1/20/14
Then God remembered Rachel, and gave heed to her and opened her womb. So she conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.”
This is an interesting comment that she makes. Rachel is in midlife. If she were interviewed at 20 years of age, she would be brimming with confidence and hope for the future. Yet, here she says that God has taken away her reproach. Up until this point, she felt disapproval. For 20 to 25 years, she felt shame.
Rachel’s disapproval can be seen with the names she gave her adopted kids: Dan-judged, Naphtali-wrestling,… She appeared to have grown bitter.
How often do we have hopes that go bad. Situations and relationships that feel full of promise, but they don’t turn out. Rarely can we look back on life and say it turned out how we expected.
This doesn’t mean God abandoned Rachel and has finally showed up. He always loved her and was with her. When she prayed for kids, the answer wasn’t a “no”, but a “not now.”
How are we to respond when life doesn’t go as we would want? I think of the proverb that Chuck Smith penned, “blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken.”
Also, we’re told to “give thanks in all things.” While Rachel was disappointed and there is nothing wrong with owning that, we are to look to God in trust. We are to praise him in all circumstances. This doesn’t mean we are to be happy with the difficulties. Rachel ached to be a mom. But I think of the words of Peter when everyone was abandoning Jesus and Jesus said, “are you going to leave also?”. Peter said, “where shall we go?”
Jesus said to the woman at the well, “if you drink of this water, you shall thirst again. But if you drink of the water that I give, you will never thirst.”
Lord, help us to trust with in every area of our lives and to praise you.