Trying to Win Back Kimmie Gibler (One More Wife Will Fix The Problem)

Suggested Reading: Genesis 28:1-9

My wife and I were both big Full House fans growing up, so we naturally watched the Fuller House sequel series on Netflix. One of the ongoing story points throughout the first season dealt with Kimmie Gibler and her soon-to-be ex-husband. Fernando had cheated on Kimmie repeatedly and so she had kicked him out and asked for a divorce. Fernando was trying to win her back by being romantic and making grand gestures. And any of the things he did throughout the series probably would have been sweet. If it wasn't for the fact that he was trying to make up for repeated infidelities. He was trying to mix some good things in to all of the bad he had done (and was apparently still doing when the series began), hoping it would make everything alright. It took Fernando a long time of consistently being faithful to win back her trust.

In Genesis 28, Isaac and Rebecca decided to send their younger son, Jacob, off to find a wife from Rebecca's family. When they did so, their older son Esau finally realized that his parents didn't really like the multiple Canaanite wives he already had. So Esau came up with what he thought was a brilliant strategy to fix the problem.  Esau visited his uncle Ishmael’s family and married one of Ishmael’s daughters, in addition to the wives he already had. His new wife’s name was Mahalath. She was the sister of Nebaioth and the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son. (Genesis 28:9, NLT). Esau thought that adding another wife to his collection would solve the problem.

Esau seemed to have a very common misunderstanding. Esau thought that he could mix one good decision in with all of his bad decisions and everything would suddenly be ok. Now, we could talk about whether adding another wife to the mix was really a good decision but that, too, is kind of the point. When we think we can make one good decision to counteract all of our bad decisions, we simply are not employing good judgment.

How often do we try to place all of our hope on studying for one final test when we have blown off all the others? Or suddenly try to pay our bills first when we have wasted our money for months, hoping we can avoid getting something cut off or repossessed? Or try to make up for a consistently bad witness with a single act of kindness so we can share the gospel with someone?

I'm sure it didn't take Esau long to realize that his parents still weren't thrilled with the women he married and that adding one more wife didn't really fix the problem. Trying to mix a "good" decision in with a slew of bad ones doesn't make everything ok. The only remedy for a lot of bad decisions is consistently making good decisions. Mixing in one good decision amounts to nothing but a poor excuse to feel better about ourselves.

Mutants, Servants and Life-Style Choices

Suggested Reading: Genesis 24:1-15 (or read the whole story here)

A few years ago the SYFY channel ran a show called ALPHAS. The show was essentially a toned down version of X-Men, focused on people with advanced mutations that give them special abilities. One of these Alphas was a woman named Kat whose ability enabled her to learn any skill by watching it once. She could watch it on tv or witness it live in person but if she saw it just once, she could learn and reproduce it.

While there are people who have very good memories and learning skills, in reality, all of us learn by watching other people. In the book of Genesis, we are given a very illustrative example of someone learning by watching. One of Abraham's trusted servants, an older gentlemen who had watched Abraham's relationship with God play out through the years, was sent on a quest to find a wife for Abraham's son Isaac. When the servant arrived at the place where Abraham had instructed, he stopped and prayed. “O  Lord, God of my master, Abraham, please give me success today, and show unfailing love to my master, Abraham. See, I am standing here beside this spring, and the young women of the town are coming out to draw water. This is my request. I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug. ’ If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink, and I will water your camels, too! ’—let her be the one you have selected as Isaac’s wife. This is how I will know that you have shown unfailing love to my master.” (Genesis 24:12-14, NLT).

Now, several things stand out about the servant's prayer. For one, most eastern peoples of the day believed that gods were stationary, territorial beings who only had power within a very specific and limited area. Second, they tended to believe that the gods could control certain things, like the weather or fertility or a roll of the dice, but they didn't tend to believe the gods could control people's actions. But here was this servant, hundreds of miles from where the Lord was normally worshiped, asking him to control both fate and people by bringing the girl the Lord had chosen at just the right time to do exactly the right thing. Where did he learn that? Most likely from watching Abraham's  relationship with God.

People watch us all the time, whether we realize it or not, and they are learning about our God from us. What do we show them? Do we show them a God who is loving and patient, who is in control of the future? Or do we show them a god who is so pathetic and weak that we have to worry, cheat and plot to move forward in life?  Do we show them a God who inspires integrity in His people or a god who doesn't mind Christian symbols plastered on the back of a car going 15 over the speed-limit? Do we show them a God who cares about the insignificant and the poor or a god who only cares about those powerful enough to attract attention to themselves? Maybe, we show them a god who plays favorites rather a God who sent his Son so that no one would perish.

What are you showing people with your life? Most people will only learn what they see in you. 

Letting Someone Sacrifice You

Suggested Reading: Genesis 22:1-19

When I was in college, I had a very close female friend and the two of us were "not dating." One night I met up with her briefly before she ran off to do something else and God spoke to me very clearly, letting me know that she was going to "lay me on the altar." The next day when she wanted to talk to me, she used those exact words, "I'm laying you on the altar." Having been prepared for the conversation, I was able to handle it fairly well. But I also began to think a lot about an often overlooked biblical character, Isaac.

Not long after God assured Abraham that Ishmael would be taken care of and had him sent away, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a way of testing Abraham. Being well over 100 years old, Abraham made Isaac carry the wood for the sacrifice up a mountain.  Isaac was knowledgeable enough about the sacrificial process to ask his father where the sacrifice actually was since they had not taken one with them. Then when they reached the top of the mountain, Isaac did something extraordinary. When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood (Genesis 22:9, NLT). Did you catch that? This young man who was strong enough to carry firewood up a mountain and smart enough to know what was going on allowed a man 100 years his senior to tie him up and prepare him as a sacrifice!

Sometimes, the people around us have to experience some difficult things. Sometimes they have to give things up in order to grow and mature. Sometimes they have to let go of things that interfere with their relationship with God. And sometimes that something they have to let go of is us.

One thing that being Christ-like means is being willing to be sacrificed for someone else's good, which is very different than sacrificing for someone else's good. When we sacrifice, we make the choice to give something up or endure some pain. When we are sacrificed, someone else makes the choice and we have to live with being giving up or enduring the pain. Isaac allowed himself to be sacrificed in much the same way that Jesus allowed the people of his day to put him on a cross. Both men could have stopped the events and chose not to.

Maybe, today, you are being sacrificed. Maybe someone is in the process of giving you up or leaving you behind because doing so is necessary for them to grow up or move on with their lives. If so, let me tell you that being sacrificed is never fun; it can leave you feeling rejected, unappreciated and undervalued. But if you make the choice to allow yourself to be sacrificed, if you can choose to accept the heartache and pain for someone else's good, you will be at least one step closer to knowing what Jesus went through and who Jesus really is. And you will be practicing a love that is concerned with the other person rather than with yourself.

The next time you are sacrificed, how will you respond? Will you focus on the feelings of hurt? Or will you find a way to embrace the suffering for someone else's good?