Rachel!
Genesis 30:1”When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"
Some of us are chilling out with our goodies and worldly toys without God and then panic when things cave in! Are you listening? When Rachel’s sister Leah was blessed with two sons: Reuben and Judah, Rachel panicked because she had no children; wait a minute, we don’t get to see her get agitated before this! Some of us wake up only after we see our neighbor park his new car! Coveting, envying and grudging are from the devil!
This woman Rachel was so obsessed with her beauty and mesmerized by the love showered by her husband Jacob that I guess God was never in her agenda, look what she does: ‘she demands her husband Jacob to give her children or else she threatens to die!’ She cried to the wrong person and the greed in asking not for a child but for ‘children’, all together throws open her rebellious heart! When people do not want to wait for God to bless them, no matter what the time frame may be, they conjure up tricks in their favor and manipulate to get things done. Are you listening? Hey friend! Things done rashly, anyhow, headlong, recklessly, carelessly would crash! Helter-skelter action would eventually cause mayhem! Look what Rachel does: ‘Rachel gave her servant Bilhah as a wife to Jacob her husband” (Genesis 30:4) Through her folly and evil plans she gets two sons through her servant and names them Dan and Naphtali and she goes on to praise God for her own mean trick!
Instead of getting into His presence and waiting on God, we run around for swift, easy ways to get just not one but ‘many’ children! I guess finally Rachel gets exhausted because Leah also starts the drama of making babies, it is now that Rachel gets on her knees and pleads God to open her womb! Praise Jesus! We see ‘light and joy’ in verse 22, where the Bible says: “God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.” Friend, we got to wait for God to open things for us! When you connive and push, you would bleed! Wait for Him!
Does God shut doors? Yes, sure! I felt compelled to write this devotion, there is urgency about this stuff; since many are not aware of the closed doors in their life - they keep knocking the wrong doors and get hurt eventually. Don’t run to Jacobs’ run to God! Trust in the providence of God! Shut doors opened the door for my ‘school of prayer’ where I studied the nuances and skills of prayer. I wrote my book ‘Locked up with God’ during this season. I never knew, it’s from this foundation of prayer that God would build our ministry.
We will get frazzled. We will feel pressure. We will be tired. We will get discouraged. We will feel exhausted. We would never be exempted from all these, stay tuned to God and His ways!
