Aren't you glad God just works with us right where we are?
There are pictures in my parents photo albums of me when I was probably 5 or 6. Our Labrador Retriever had a litter of puppies. I think there was like 13 in all. One day I was out on the front porch and got the bright idea to lay down on a lawn chair and cover my self with a living blanket of puppies. I remember it taking some time to get all 13 puppies on to the lawn chair and then on top of me. Once this fete of amazing puppy handling skills was accomplished it then began an ever greater task to manage the puppies and keep them on my lap. Some where in this chaotic mass of puppies, which I found to be great fun by the way, my mom snapped a picture.
When I read Genesis 30 today I was reminded of this mass of puppies. First is was one wife having sons for Jacob, then there was the maid servant of the second more beloved wife who couldn't have kids, then when the first wife stopped having children she gave her maidservant to Jacob to have more kids, then the second more beloved wife finally has a child herself, and then the first wife starts having kids again, and finally in a later chapter the second more beloved wife has a second son.
Jacob ends us with 12 sons, who knows how many daughters, and four wives!!! Can you just picture in your minds eye Jacob laying back on a lawn chair piled high with babies and wives. O.K. maybe you can't, but I sure can.
What a crazy, crazy mess of humanity. There was so much jealousy floating around, Leah was bartering mandrakes with Rachel in order to get a night with Jacob, every child that Leah bears or her maidservant bears she hopes will win Jacob's love for her. Rachel has to have children and starts the whole give the man more wives thing because she had to have children in order to have any worth in the eyes of her husband even though it was Rachel that Jacob worked 14 years to get!!!
It's a mess! The amazing thing to me is, this is the starting of God's chosen nation of Israel. These 12 sons are the twelve tribes. These are the people God delivers from slavery, gives the ten commandments to, dwells in the sanctuary they build for him, and gives the promised land to. Out of this mess of a family comes King David, Solomon - the wisest man in history, the prophets, and eventually...the Messiah. Jesus comes from the line started in this mess of poligamy and jealousy. Amazing!
God works with us no matter how much messy humanity we are burried under. No matter what we do or don't do, no matter what we look like, how we smell, how much we make, who our friends are, who our family is, or even how well we follow him. God still strives with us and blesses us. When I read a story like this my life seems way less complicated. It is easier to believe the promise, "He who began a work work in me is faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."
I am sure glad God is the author and finisher of my faith, because who knows what kind of things I would be buried in now, without him.
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