From Barren to a Baker's Dozen!
Oh hey, short on time? No worries! I'd love to join you on your commute or daily walk/run, or shoot, even while you take care of that to-do list. We can't let these things get in the way of this friendship. It's just starting to get good! Click below to listen to the blogcast.
Hey! So as I said last week, "You know where to find me!" and look at you! You found me! I like it here at The Good Day and I'm so, so glad you're starting to like it here, too.
So quick recap from last week's chat -
We're tired of hiding behind the infamous church nod. We're going to ask questions and learn together.
Moses wrote the first five books of The Bible, which together are called The Torah.
The first seventeen books of The Old Testament (Genesis to Esther) are all about the history.
Even in the beginning with The Fall and the entrance of sin into the world, God made a promise He intended to keep - a promise to make everything right again.
Today, we're picking up in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis where we see another promise of God, a special promise known as a covenant. A covenant is special because it's not contractual. In a contract, the deal is off if one person fails to live up to the expectations. In a covenant, it doesn't matter if we mess up on every account, the promise still stands.
Our Family Tree
If you remember from last week, we said we'd get to meet the founding father of our faith soon enough. Well, "soon enough" has come! Meet Abraham.
Well, first he was known as Abram. God made a covenant with him and changed his name to Abraham. In this covenant, God promised Abraham would become the father of many nations.
This seems highly unlikely because Abraham and Sarah are old - like so very, very old - like Depends and wrinkles and using words like "sonny" and "young whippersnappers" in their talk of the younger generation - and they have no children. Yet, God made a promise and He fulfills His promises to His people. They have a son named Isaac, and as the events of their story unfold, we see a direct parallel and foreshadowing to the birth of...?
Yes! Jesus!
Remember that lighthouse? Every part of The Old Testament points us to the light of Jesus!
Also, remember a couple weeks ago when talked about reasons why we don't read The Bible and admitted how sometimes we may think it's outdated and not relevant to today? Well, did you watch the news last night, maybe this morning?
Events of our modern-day news stems from this family right here. Before there was Isaac, Sarah took things into her own hands and had her servant Hagar have a son with Abraham because it seemed impossible for Sarah to have her own child. Hagar's son, Ishmael, is the father of Islam.
Ahh, now we see the divide. The pieces are coming together...
So back to Isaac. He marries a beautiful woman named Rebekah and they have twins. They name the twins Esau (pronounced "E-saw") and Jacob. Jacob was the second born, which was unfortunate during a time when the firstborn received the father's blessing. Esau traded the blessing to his brother for a bowl of soup!
Soup! C'mon Esau! (Yet, how often are we tempted to forego an eternal blessing for a temporary pleasure...Mm, yeah, ouch.)
And now, it's time for the family tree to grow. And just like today, the growth we see in this family tree starts with a little thing called a crush.
Ever crushed on someone really hard? Like real hard? Like you're looking them up on social and watching all their stories or maybe willing to work for their father for seven years so you can marry that person kind of hard?
Well, that was Jacob. (The seven years of labor part, but I'm sure if they had social media back then, he'd be consumed with everything this girl posted too.)
He saw Rachel and was so captivated by her, he knew she was worth seven years of hard labor. So Jacob worked seven long years and guess what? Rachel's dad gave him... wait for it...
Keep waiting...
Okay, you've waited long enough. So had Jacob by golly, and get this! The dad was apparently Mr. Practical. Before his younger daughter could be married, he remembered his unmarried older daughter, so he didn't give Jacob the beautiful Spring chicken that was Rachel. He gave him her older sister, Leah!
But, Jacob didn't want Leah... He wanted Rachel! She was the desire of his heart. So what did he do? He worked seven more years for Rachel!
The power of a crush. Oh, it's a strong pull.
As we can imagine, being the unwanted one would bring a heavy cloud of emotional pain for Leah. We see God had compassion on her and blessed her womb - a lot! She gave Jacob 6 sons - Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah (which means "Praise the Lord" - this is important, we'll come back to this), Issachar, and Zebulun.
Rachel gave him two sons - Joseph and Benjamin.
Rachel had a maidservant named Bilhah who gave him 2 more sons - Dan and Naphtali.
Leah also had a maidservant named Zilpah who gave him 2 more sons - Gad and Asher.
Whoa. That's a lot of sons. Let's do some basic math and total these up - 6 + 2 + 2+ 2 = ?
Yep, 12!
A dozen sons! Can you imagine? We watch Cheaper by the Dozen and it's basically as good as abstinence...
Makes me think of a house not far from my college campus. There were so many bikes. They'd even hang them from the tree in the front yard. As you can guess, it was a house where a large group of guys lived together. And best part, they called their house the "Testoster-home."
Anyway, point is our family tree is just getting started. There's more to come about these twelve sons and their impact and role in the larger story. Stay tuned, friend!
May we find strength in the Word of God. May our joy for reading scripture grow as we intentionally choose to set aside time to spend reading it each day. May our peace overflow as the Word of God reads us and changes us from the inside out. Then, we will know rest this world can't give.
Remember how we said 5 minutes a day can change your day, your life and even your eternity? Well, here's what I'll be reading this week. I really hope you'll join me!
Oh, and not sure which soup Esau traded his birthright for, butttttt had it come with this sweet southern cornbread, I'd have a little more sympathy...
The good life, well it starts with a good day. Then another. Then another. Let's choose to live #TheGoodDay one day at a time.
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