HOPE FOR THE UNLOVED

 

This week in the women’s Bible study I’ve been teaching we will be studying the lives of Leah and Rachel, sister wives of the patriarch Jacob, from the account in Genesis 29 and 30.

The patriarch is working for his uncle Laban and while he works he has time to get to know the two sisters.  Rachel, the youngest, is by far the lovelier of the two daughters, and the one who has captured the attention and love of Jacob.  When Laban offers him whatever wages he chooses in return for working for him, Jacob offers to work 7 years for the privilege of marrying Rachel.

The years fly by and it is finally time for the marriage ceremony.  When evening comes, a feast is prepared and the bride is heavily veiled. When the ceremony ends, she enters the marriage tent.  When the light of day dawns, Jacob is shocked to discover that he has been deceived.  It is Leah, not Rachel, in his marriage bed.

When a furious Jacob confronts Laban, he discovers that it is not the custom of the day for the youngest girl to be married before the eldest.  But all is not lost.  If Jacob will agree to finish out Leah's bridal week, he can have Rachel as well, if he will give Laban another 7 years of labor. And Jacob agrees.

The years following are fraught with conflict, jealousy and competition between these two sisters, over the love of Jacob and the ability to produce children, no doubt making Jacob’s life extremely miserable! 

When I read the passage again this week, my heart went out to Leah.  Although she longed for it, the love of her husband Jacob would always belong to Rachel.  And it would never be any different for all the long years these two sisters would inhabit the same household.

This morning in my quiet time I read Psalm 55.  When I read some of David’s words, I couldn’t help but think of Leah.

“My thoughts trouble me, I am distraught.

My heart is in anguish within me.

Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!  I would fly away. . . .to a place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.

If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it, but it is YOU. . . .my companion, my close friend. . .

What must it have been like for her to be married to a man who didn’t love her, to live with a sister who was always trying to get the upper hand – when she already had the love of Leah’s husband?

Maybe YOU know what that’s like.  Maybe you have known the anguish of betrayal from a husband or close friend.  Maybe you long to fly away to some desert island where you can get away from it all – but you, like Leah – are stuck where you are.

In thinking about the lesson I will teach this week, I thought of the wonderful assurance we who know Jesus have when we face situations like this.

There will never, EVER, be a time when Jesus will do this.  He will NEVER look at us one day and say, “You’re not living up to my expectations.  I don’t love you anymore.” 

On the contrary, everything Jesus ever did was to communicate to us just how much He loves us.  There is no greater love than this, Jesus says in John’s gospel, chapter 15, verse 13, then that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus didn’t demonstrate His love for us simply by being kind, or speaking loving words, although He did both. Jesus demonstrated His love by giving His life – enduring scorn, humiliation, pain and suffering, insults, hatred - and then, at the end of the worst day possible, He endured separation from His Father as He bore our sin – willingly, for YOU and for ME - so we would NEVER have to be separated from Him.  So that we would ALWAYS know just how much He loves us.

The Apostle Paul, at the end of the chapter 8 in the book of Romans, said this: 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Do you HEAR that? 

Close friends may turn on us, husbands or wives might tell us they no longer love us, circumstances might make us want to run away, those closest to us may insult us – BUT JESUS WILL NEVER STOP LOVING US!  NEVER!  EVER!  NOTHING will EVER be able to separate us from His love!

And that is a promise upon which you can stand forever!  Take heart child of God, Jesus loves you.

 

MY SHEPHERD'S VOICE

This past weekend I went on a women’s retreat.  It was held in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a place with many happy memories for me from vacations with my husband and children.  For two days I enjoyed good food, a wonderful speaker, sweet fellowship with my sisters in Christ, seeing the ocean from my hotel room, and all of the special delights of a beach town.

On Saturday afternoon during our free time my friend and I went back to our hotel room and spent some time talking.  I was talking about my recent experience donating a kidney to my friend from church and how I knew that it was the Lord leading me to take the first step of being tested.  My friend asked, “But how did you KNOW it was GOD telling you to do it?”  The question took me aback a bit because I had never given it any thought.  And then I said, “I knew it was God because I recognized the sound of His “voice”. 

Now if you are not a believer in Jesus, or you have not known Him by faith for very long, this might sound weird, so let me clear something up right at the outset.  I did NOT hear an audible voice.  There were times in the Bible when God spoke and His voice may have been audible, like when He called out to the boy Samuel in I Samuel, chapter 3, or when He met Moses at the burning bush.

But now that we have the written word of God in the Bible, God doesn’t need to speak in an audible voice.  He speaks through His Word, through the prompting of His Holy Spirit who indwells believers in Jesus, and sometimes He speaks through circumstances and the godly counsel of other believers.  So, I didn’t hear an audible voice, but nevertheless, I knew that it was the Lord who laid it on my heart that I should pursue the testing to see if I was a match for my friend.

After that conversation, I began to think about how I came to know my Lord’s voice, and I realized that like all relationships, the better you get to know someone, the more easily you recognize his voice. 

When I was first married I was living and working in New Jersey while my husband was serving in the Army in Viet Nam.  Mostly we corresponded by letter but every now and then I would be awakened during the night with a phone call.  The call was picked up and forwarded to me by a MARS ham radio operator.  Though my husband and I had been separated by time and miles, and there was always another operator on the line reminding each of us to say, “over” when we had finished speaking, I still immediately knew HIS voice. 

The Lord has been speaking to me through His Word since the Holy Spirit took up residence in my heart and life the moment I first believed in Jesus.  Each time I responded with obedience, I grew to know Him better, to recognize His voice.  God’s Word has been so central to me in my walk with the Lord.

Over the nearly 35 years that I've walked with the Lord I 've read the Bible on my own, studied with devotionals, attended Sunday school classes where the Bible was taught, taught the Bible to other women and children, and studied God’s Word in depth for 18 years through the ministry of Bible Study Fellowship International – all the while getting to know the Lord and the sound of His voice. 

In addition, the Lord invited me to join Him in some faith adventures that had a huge impact on my faith in His faithfulness, so that His voice became more and more familiar to me – especially through the difficult journeys of faith.  Someone has said that God whispers to us through the quiet times in our lives, but shouts to us in our pain.  I found that was true.

The first time was in 1982.  I was a young mom with two daughters, just 2 and 4 years old, when a lump was discovered in my neck.  After some testing it was diagnosed as a tumor on my thyroid and the doctor recommended I have it out.  I had never had surgery before, so I was scared to DEATH.  In that day, they didn’t do biopsies before the surgery, they did them while you were still on the operating table.  That way, if the tumor was cancerous, they could go ahead and do more drastic surgery while you were still under anesthesia. 

So I went into the hospital not knowing what the outcome of the surgery would be – and without the internet to check for myself – I had no idea of the possibilities either, which was a good thing! 

Looking ahead to the surgery I was not only thinking about myself, I was thinking about my husband and my little girls, wondering what would happen to us all if it turned out to be a cancerous tumor.  FEAR was my default, but by God’s grace, I didn’t STAY afraid.  Instead my hospital room felt like a sanctuary.  I read my Bible and prayed and I knew the Lord was right there with me. I was “hearing” the sound of His voice bringing to me His comfort and peace.

When it was time to go to the OR, I was wheeled there by a man I had never seen before.  On the elevator he chatted with someone while I hummed a hymn, but when he left me in the hallway outside the OR, he leaned over and said in my ear, “You are in good hands with the Lord”.  Wow!  That was exactly the assurance I needed!  I never saw that man again.  His was a human voice I “heard” speaking to me, but I knew it was the Lord who inspired the words. 

Many other faith adventures followed:  more surgeries, one cancer diagnosis, difficulty raising a child, ministry opportunities that took me WAY outside my comfort zone, moving to a new place at the same time all my close relatives moved far away – all of these things grew my faith and made me more attuned to my Lord’s “voice”. 

I remember saying after that first surgery when my girls were so young – I’d gladly go through another experience like this anytime if it causes me to experience the reality of the Lord the way this did.  And the Lord has taken me at my word!

In chapter 10 of the Gospel of John, when Jesus spoke of Himself as the Good Shepherd, He said this:

“The sheep listen to (the Shepherd’s) voice.  He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out, He goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him because they know his voice.  I am the Good Shepherd.  The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep”

 If you want to hear the Shepherd’s voice you really have to get to know the Shepherd.

A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Many years ago now a movie was released entitled, “March of the Penguins”.  It was a beautifully done documentary on the breeding habits of the Emperor Penguin.  I remember being completely amazed at the details of the incredible hardships these beautiful birds faced in order to bring their little ones into being and then protect them while they grew.

Contrary to the habits of many other animals who breed and raise their young in the spring, the Emperor Penguins migrate to the same place every year, to bring forth their young in the winter, in the vast emptiness of Antarctica.  After the females lay their eggs they depart, traveling an incredible distance to find food, while the males protect the eggs, and later the chicks, in a special pouch under their wings. 

When the winter winds blow and the temperatures fall, the males form a huge huddle and then rotate their positions so that everyone has a turn in the center and at the outer rim, where they are more exposed to the elements.

Finally the females, in a long single line, “somehow” find their way back just in time to feed their now hungry chicks.

At the time that this movie was released I happened to be teaching women about the creation story from the early chapters of the book of Genesis in the Bible and the story of the Emperor Penguins became the perfect illustration of the majesty of God in creation.

Currently, my husband and I are watching a series on public television entitled: “Earthflight”, which chronicles the migratory behavior of birds from every continent around the world.  And once again I am in awe. 

It would seem that the videographers mounted a small camera on one member of each species of bird, because the filming is literally a “bird’s eye view” of their respective journeys. 

We SEE the terrain viewed by the birds as they travel over fields, and seas, and mountains.  We SEE the weather patterns of fog, and rain, and snow through which they travel to reach their destinations.  We SEE the predators from which they flee to avoid becoming “lunch”.  We SEE them building nests and tending to their young.  It’s amazing.

When I SEE all of this myself – what I SEE is the awesomeness of the God who created them all and programmed them to know exactly when the time for mating is near, and Who directs them where to go when the time is right.  By the inner prompting with which He equipped them, they leave where they are and travel sometimes thousands of miles, facing numerous obstacles, to reach a very specific destination where they breed and raise their chicks. 

I don’t for a single moment believe this kind of behavior is evolutionary, or that it happened by chance.  Seriously, what are the chances???

No, I believe these magnificent birds and the behavior they exhibit reveals the power and creative genius of the One who made all things and then pronounced them, good.

I agree with the Apostle Paul when he says in Romans 1:20:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

So what do YOU SEE when you view the intricacies and beauty of the world around you?  A world brought into being by random chance, or a world created by THE Supreme Being, who’s creation reflects His glory?