COME AS A CHILD LESSON 80 TWO WIVES AND TWELVE KIDS - PART 1

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

(PART ONE)

Well there they were, Jacob and Leah and Rachel; starting a marriage together.

 

Does that sound a bit weird to you?  It should!  This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.  God does give us free will, but sometimes our own free will can lead us into paths that are not so perfect.  God allows this.  He lets our hearts decide how to love.  Even when the odds are stacked against us and we are tricked into certain circumstances, still our hearts have choices.  Our choices prove out our lives.   

It was obvious that Jacob loved Rachel and not Leah.  Something tells me this home wasn’t the most peaceful home on earth!  No matter how Jacob turned one of his wives was going to have her feelings hurt.

In a way, this was Jacob’s fault.  He had been tricked into the marriage for sure; but he could have accepted what he knew of God as true after he found out he had been deceived.  It would have been a sad, hard decision, but he could have made the choice to live with Leah only and not be in a relationship with two sisters.  He knew this type of arrangement was never God’s plan.  Jacob KNEW God wanted every man to have only one wife; despite the cultural customs.   The patriarchs all carried God and His ways in their hearts, even before the Ten Commandments were given to Moses and made official to the rest of the world.  Jacob KNEW this type of relationship would have normally displeased God, yet he was in a strange situation.   Was there any right and true answer for doing the right thing?

He also KNEW he had promised himself to Rachel, and that was what he finally based his reactions on; that mixed with the fact that he wanted what he wanted and would have what he would have.  Jacob had always been this way.  That part of him had not changed even in all of the years of trials and test and troubles while working for Laban. 

Even though he had been tricked into marrying Leah, Jacob could have accepted it as “done” and followed what he knew to be God’s will for a man to have only one wife.  He could have chosen to not marry Rachel.  If that had happened, nothing about Jacob’s marriage would have been wrong; but that wasn’t what happened, and instead of seeing God’s power and might when His will is perfectly carried out in ALL situations; we get a glimpse of how graceful and merciful God can be to those He loves when this doesn’t happen and humans act in a human way.  God did not leave Jacob in all of this.  God still loved and blessed Jacob. God kept His promises to Jacob.   As a matter of fact,  God was right there for all three of them, Jacob, Leah and Rachel.

After such a great deception on his wedding night with Leah, and knowing and understanding that she willingly participated without telling him a word of the truth; Jacob didn’t much care how Leah felt about anything.  The Hebrew translations say Jacob “hated” her.  The word is used so strongly that it brings violence and abuse to mind.  Do you see this pattern that led to hate?  Jacob deceived Esau.  Esau hated Jacob.  Leah deceived Jacob.  Jacob hated Leah.   Laban deceived everyone and everyone detested Laban.  It seems that deception and lies lead to hate. 

What goes around comes around. 

When the wedding week of Jacob and Leah was over everyone was thinking “poor Rachel.” 

Now that both marriages had happened and Jacob loved Rachel more; the table turns and one begins to think, poor Leah! 

What man in her life had ever loved her?  Leah had been used by her father and brother for gain and forced into a marriage that would forever make her hated in her sister’s eyes as well as her husband’s eyes.  There was no chance of Jacob loving her under these circumstances.  She would spend the rest of her life just being tolerated, hated and ignored.  What wife wants that in her marriage?

Nobody was ecstatically happy here! 

Poor Leah though had to endure lasting hardship.  Her hopes of things getting better in life were probably non-existent at this point. 

When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.  

What strange words!  Can you imagine what Leah must have felt like to not be loved by her own new husband?  He had not chosen her.  He did not love her.  Her own father had made her deceive him.  How could a girl's father be so callous, so cold, and unloving?  Leah's father and brother had dreamed up the whole scheme, thinking only of themselves, never giving her feelings a second thought.  Now she must spend the rest of her life married to a man who didn't want her, who only had eyes for her sister.

I wonder how many Leah's are out there still?  How many women are feeling unloved by a father, husband, brother or son?  These countless women who live out their lives feeling unloved, unwanted and unnoticed; like someone whose existence does not matter at all.  How many women have to deal with the pain and the shame of unrealized expectations in life and keep going as if everything was okay?

But then God looks down into the broken hearts of such women, just as He looked down and saw Leah living out a hopeless life.  God will teach these women their worth.  He will show them who they are, who He created them to be.  Ladies, if you are having trouble with your man, the best help you will ever receive will come from God.  He knows the answers, just ask Him!  Never doubt this.  Just ask Leah!  She will tell you how many years can be wasted if you let them be so.

One of the greatest tests of love is to wait.  Jacob loved Rachel so much that he was willing to wait for her for seven years.  It wound up being seven years and one week and seven more years of work for him to have her.  Even after the great deception took place; he was willing to work seven more years for her!  Jacob’s love was willing to wait for Rachel.

 Now it was Leah’s turn for waiting.  Some believe that she had been in love with Jacob all along and that was why she had been willing to go along with the trickery of Laban.  It wasn’t a good workable plan though.  Tricking someone into marriage is never a good idea!  The consequences of deception are usually painful and distressing.  In spite of the horrible start of their marriage and the awful way that Jacob treated her, Leah probably still thought she was in love with Jacob.  She never said one word about leaving.  She wanted the marriage still.  She was willing to wait.  She thought eventually her love for him would shine through and capture his heart.  So a lot of Leah’s life was simply spent in waiting for her husband to change his mind and love her

As she was waiting patiently, God looked down and saw Leah’s broken heart.  He saw her lack of revenge in these circumstances.  He noticed her shame for her own actions and her shame for the rejection she was feeling both from her husband and her sister.    He saw that she had not reacted in a jealous way toward Rachel.  He saw how she sat patiently waiting as night after night Jacob courted Rachel and loved Rachel more and more. 

God knew the love of a child would bring comfort to Leah.  God began to bless her with sons from Jacob.   

 In these real life circumstances Rachel’s true character that had been veiled and hidden from Jacob’s eyes because of her great beauty became more prominent, apparent and open.  The ugly green-eyed monster called jealousy reared it’s head from the deep of Rachel’s heart.   She was so jealous of Leah bearing Jacob children that she said to him “Give me children, or else I die!” 

This one fact just shows us how much alike Jacob and Rachel really were.  They BOTH were self centered.  They BOTH would rather have their own way and if that could not happen they would chose to die rather than to live without their own way.  They both were stubborn and relentless when they wanted something. 

When Jacob saw that Rachel was becoming selfish, discontented, envious and demanding, he lost his temper and became angry with her.  Self-serving people are often quick to overlook the trait in their own hearts and point it out in others.  Jacob said to Rachel;  “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

Let’s not leave this part of the story without discussing what happens when a person becomes discontent.  Discontentment is one of those sins that just sneaks up on you in the process of life.  You hardly ever notice it.  Discontentment doesn’t knock on the door and make an announcement of its presence or give you fair warning that it is about to approach and turn your joy to sorrow.  It enters quietly without warning and slinks in uninvited.  It causes chaos, confusion and disaster. 

Never, ever let discontentment open the door to your marriage or your personal relationships.  It is a sin that has the ability to destroy everything if left alone to function and grow.  Heed the word of God and find contentment with the circumstances in which He has placed you. 

Discontentment brings curses and trouble.  Contentment brings blessings and joy.  Try to stay on the joy side whenever possible!  Learn like the Apostle Paul to be content in whatever circumstances you find yourself living.  Oh that Rachel had heeded these words!

Rachel in her sin of discontent gave her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob in order that she and Jacob might have sons by her.  

Here we go again. 

 The miracle of conception always and only lies exclusively within the power of God.  Men should never tamper with this. 

Remember how Abraham and Sarah had to learn this the hard way?  

Well guess what.......................history always seems to repeat itself.