2024_07_12 Insight Post- Karen Heal
This week’s reading- Genesis 29, Genesis 30, Genesis 31, Genesis 33:1, 2, & 7, Genesis 35:16-26, Genesis 46:19, 22, & 25, Genesis 48:7, Ruth 4:11, 1 Samuel 10:2, Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18
Have you ever felt perfectly happy with yourself–until you read someone else’s social media? Your situation is the same, but somehow, it seems less shiny. And now you’re in a bad mood.
Rachel’s rivalry with her sister Leah occupies much of Genesis 29-32 and gives me the impression of domestic acrimony—not a fun place to live. Leah was good at having babies, fulfilling her wifely duty to enlarge Jacob’s estate and ensure his hereditary line. Rachel, however, could not get pregnant, and disappointment ate at her.
Admittedly, Rachel had reason to be unhappy. Her father, Laban, tricked her, and there was no love lost in that relationship. (In fact, some speculate that she stole her father’s household idols as a way of emasculating him.) As well, besides the emotionally consuming isolation of infertility, a woman without children in those times was an object of ridicule–or even someone to avoid as if she was being punished for her sins. Dissatisfied, Rachel wanted what her sister had.
Have you heard the Theodore Roosevelt quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy?” It works in Rachel’s situation. By comparing herself to Leah, Rachel drained the joy out of her life. By highlighting what she was missing, Rachel lost sight of what she did have.
Instead, Rachel could have comforted herself with the knowledge that God had marked their family for success. She might have remembered that God had blessed and prospered her husband, Jacob. Also, Rachel had Jacob’s devotion, something Leah desperately sought.
God made Rachel–and each of us–for His particular purpose. He made us who we are supposed to be with the personality, talents, skills, and resources we need to serve Him. Comparing ourselves to others blinds us to what is uniquely ours. God intimately knows the desires of our hearts, and He delights to give them to us when we align them with His plans (Psalm 37:4).
God did fulfill Rachel’s desires, giving her sons, Joseph and Benjamin. The prophet Jeremiah memorializes her as interceding for her people in Jeremiah 31:15. At her death, her grieving husband built her a tomb where her people even today pay their respects. Jewish tradition has other positive stories about Rachel, and she is revered as a “Mother of Israel.” Rachel may have struggled with jealousy, but God redeemed her faults, using her to help create His beloved chosen people.
Karen Heal
Prayer Team member