Passages for today: Genesis 29:1-30:43, Matthew 11:16-30, Psalm 9:7-2

In this blog, I will look at Genesis 27 to 30.

Are there things in your family that are completely amuck? Or were so? We live in a fallen world, and relationships, especially family relationships can suffer. As we know we are ‘stuck’ with our family, and they will not leave us, even if we mess up, we can spend less time being nice and saving face. In the outside world, we can put up a lovely false front, and then at home, our true natures come out.

The Bible is a realistic book, and the way family relationships come to the fore is very much like real life. Why? Because it is real life. It is a historical book, and these things did happen. The bad things are not filtered out, and the heroes of the Bible are not made greater than they are.

In the past couple of readings in Genesis, I’ve been able to see the destructive family patterns in one particular family: that of Isaac and of his son Jacob. We see that Rebecca encourages her son Jacob to cheat her older son Esau out of his blessing. Then, we follow Jacob as he goes away from home, and moves back with Rebecca’s brother Laban and his family. Esau wants to kill him. Jacob works for Laban, and Laban asks him to name his wages. He wants to marry his younger daughter Rachel, who he is very much in love with. Laban cheats him into marrying Leah first. Then Jacob marries Rachel very shortly afterwards. The two sisters are in competition, wanting to bear more sons for Jacob. Leah also feels unloved, while Rachel is loved by Jacob. After working 14 years to ‘earn’ both daughters, Jacob names new wages. Laban does not give them to him, and cheats him, so Jacob tries to find a new way to cheat him…

In this whole family history, we can see two destructive patterns coming out: competition and cheating. Jacob competes with Esau. Leah and Rachel compete with each other. Jacob, encouraged by Rebecca, cheats Esau. Laban cheats Jacob. And shortly later we will see Rachel stealing Laban’s household gods and lying about it. Even Jacob encourages his children to compete. Later we will see how his attention to his favourite child: Joseph, encourages his other sons to become jealous.

These patterns get passed on. Both Rebecca and Laban show cheating tendencies. Why? It is quite likely that they, in turn learned this from one of their parents. And we see the pattern spreading down the generations, to Jacob and his wives, and to their children.

Does God use the mess? Yes. Joseph will save his people from famine because of his brother’s jealousy, as they sold him into slavery, and he rose to an influential position there. Rachel and Leah having so many children because of their insane childbearing competition, which results in them also involving their servants in the process, helps make Israel a big nation (though even later we still see the competition present between the different tribes).

God can and does use everything for His glory. For the scared among us, let me say we should not worry (too much) about making mistakes. At the same time it is good to exercise self-control. Destructive family patterns cause a lot of pain and stress, and sin makes things more difficult for everyone. It is good to ask God to change our hearts, and through His power, to reverse the patterns in our past.

We have very diverse family histories. Some of us have extremely broken, hurting family histories in the past. We can pray that the Lord who provides will heal us. For some of us, the mistakes or wrong patterns in our families may not be so obvious. We can ask the Lord to open our eyes to them, so we can change. Even for those of us who know things went wrong in a major way, it may be good to think about what these patterns are specifically, and to pray for liberation from them.