Talking with God
02.10.05
The first half of Genesis reads like a family tree — a who’s who of marriages and childbirths as God establishes His covenant with Abraham — the “father of a multitude of nations.”1
Isaac stands apart from the patriarchs in his unwavering love for Rebekah, the only wife he took. He had received the promise of “descendants as numerous as the stars,”2 yet Rebekah only bore two sons. What was it about Isaac that he didn’t “try” to make this prophesy come true? What made Isaac different?
A statement made by Jacob3 offers a possibility, the “God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac.” Fear comes from the Hebrew word “pachad” meaning dread, or possibly awe. Where did Isaac’s pachad come from? Turn back the pages to Isaac’s youth, a boy raised as one chosen to carry God’s covenant, yet he finds himself “bound, and laid on the altar” and his own father “took the knife to slay his son.”4 While Abraham “considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead,”5 we can only imagine how Isaac felt. Perhaps this near-death experience, and God’s provision of a ram, resulted in a certain reverence and awe for God. While Isaac’s “living sacrifice” experience sets the stage, I believe it is the prayer touching his life that makes all the difference.
Isaac’s life is an answer to prayer, as is Isaac’s wife. When Abraham sends his servant to take a wife for his son, he promises that “[God] will send His angel before [him].”6 Abraham’s servant is a godly man, and he prays to God asking for “success today” in finding the one “whom [God] has appointed for [His] servant Isaac.”7 God honours his request, and brings to him Rebekah. In faith, he runs to meet her, and finding her to be the one God appointed, he blesses and worships the LORD. Then he proceeds to tell the whole family what has happened so that they know “the matter comes from the LORD.”8 He also tells Isaac,9 and Isaac “took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.”
Now Rebekah was barren, and “Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife”10 and she conceived. Isaac’s mother Sarai was also barren for many years, and she said to Abram “the LORD has prevented me from bearing children,”11 and suggests that they “obtain children through her [maid].” Abram listened, and so they took matters into their own hands, and Hagar conceived a son and named him Ishmael. God blessed Ishmael, but His covenant would be established with Isaac.12 And so “The LORD’s purpose prevails” despite the “many plans in a man’s heart.”13 Their own plans became their own grief, and Ishmael “settled in defiance of all his relatives”14 and “his hand [was] against everyone.”15 So it also was with the daughters of Lot. They plotted to “make [their] father drink wine” that they “may preserve [their] family.”16 They bore sons, who’s descendants became the Moabites and the Ammonites17 — enemies of Abraham’s descendants.18
When Rebekah was pregnant, “the children struggled together within her” so “she went to inquire of the LORD.”19 She came to know that the older would serve the younger, but did she share this with her husband? “Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob”20 and Rebekah devised a plan to deceive her husband into blessing Jacob.21
Jacob’s blessing was according to the will of the Father, as revealed to Rebekah, but not the deception in order to receive it. Jacob learned what it was like to be deceived when Laban gave him Leah instead of Rachel.22 Jacob understood how his brother Esau must feel, and he was “greatly afraid.”23 In time Jacob came to know that every blessing is from God and not due to his scheming.24
These stories emphasize the importance of prayer and communion with God to determine our actions. Many times what seems like a “good idea” on our own, really is not. God knows not only what is good for us, but what is best. His Word and prayer reveal to us how to live, and how not to live. So it is important to be open and honest with God, because He knows anyway.25 At the same time, it is important to be open and honest with man — not hiding away what God has revealed as with Rebekah. But like Abraham’s servant, announcing with excitement what God has done and is doing, as an encouragement to others that builds faith.
In my own life, I know that I love God and strive to walk in His ways. But many times I don’t feel like a “friend of the King,” don’t have that communion, that intimacy — don’t know the difference between what is best and what are my own plans. I need to take the time to share my heart with the One who knows my heart, and in turn share His heart with others. Amen.