What If Families Communicated?
Gen. 27:12-24
The scripture I mention here is only a small drop of the events within this whole family. Please at some point take the time and start with Abraham and read the whole family dynamics through to Joseph and the Exodus out of Egypt. The truth is, it is all in ancient times yet in way to many ways the family dynamics are still the same today.
I’ve mentioned how the scripture is full of dysfunctional families before in other devotional blog post. Here as I reread this event of Rebecca getting Jacob to deceive his father my heart aches and tears flow down my face. The first question that comes to my mind is, did Jacob ever tell his parents that Esau sold him his birthright for food? And then that question brought other questions to my mind. Which brought the title of this devotional blog, “What If Families Communicated?”
Isaac must’ve known his mom, Sarah, wasn’t able to have children until God kept His promise and she became pregnant with him. And then when Rebecca wasn’t becoming pregnant Isaac knew God gave his parents him as their promised son, so he went to God praying for his wife to have children. Did Rebecca know her husband prayed for her?
Rebecca became pregnant and she knew something wasn’t right, she was having some sort of pain and she asked God, what is going on within me? And God answered her, “Two nations are growing inside of your womb, and two groups of people will be divided in the future. One will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” Did Rebecca ever tell Isaac what God had shared with her?
I can not imagine the pain Rebecca must’ve been in as she delivered her sons who were fighting to be first. It’s sad to say this, their competition or jockeying for first place never stopped. And then we are at this point of Rebecca planning to deceive Isaac and encouraging Jacob to be apart of her plan. Oh how my heart hurts for Jacob.
What if we as parents were able to take the uniqueness of our children and encourage them to seek God and how God would use them and their uniqueness for His glory?
What if we as parents would talk openly about the problems within our family with our children? What if the dinner table was a safe place for children to talk about the issues they are having without judgment and shame? As I have been writing this I can’t tell you how many tears have flowed down my face.
We are to learn from the correct decision individuals made in the God’s Word and we should learn from the mistakes made by individuals in God’s Word (1 Cor. 10).
Here is a portion of the prayer I prayed after reading these scriptures and journaling my thoughts: “…Oh but Poppa, help parents of today across all cultures realize the blessing of all their children. God I don’t want to be the cause of strive, envy, discord, rivalry…between our sons. May they both know they are equally loved…”
Written by: Nancy Sherrill
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