DCL Ministries loves partnering with God’s people in order to spread the Gospel. This world is in need of believers living fearlessly for Jesus. So, it is by teaming up with Mixed Media Artist and Author, Cherie Burbach, that DCL Ministries can support  and encourage those navigating and in need of comfort, while on their Christian walk. God is making a new way for those who believe. Don’t lose hope, but  continue to hold hands with the many just like you, today…

Enjoy this article , The Mirror has Two Faces…

“Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels, and he drove all his livestock ahead of him, along with all the goods  he had accumulated in Paddan Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household gods. Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was running away. So he fled with all he had, and crossing the River, he headed for the hill country of Gilead.” Gen.31:17-21

As I read this scripture I was reminded how much Jacob loved Rachel. Previously, scripture tells us he worked 7 years to be her husband, but those years were short in his eyes due to his devotion to her. In marriage we learn a lot about one another, because there is a witness to our journey, our pain, hopes, irritations, deep desires and all that we hold close to our hearts. Jacob was always a deceiver, but as one unpacks his walk with God we are surprised at how much he transforms. Is he perfect? Hardly, but we come to understand that his coping mechanisms, when confronted with conflict, is deceit something he will struggle with all his life. However, the Bible doesn’t reveal much about his wife Rachel, but we do learn when compared to her sister Leah there seemed to be no contest. Rachel was beautiful and lovely in form and those of us who know the tale of these two sisters secretly pray we are never caught fighting over one man. But, aside from that debacle we don’t know the character or heart posture of the one who “stole” Jacobs heart–until this text.

Jacob had come to have a powerful and intimate relationship with the maker of  the heaven and earth, but to my surprise as I read this account neatly folded into the book of Genesis, I see that Rachel doesn’t share the same feelings. Upon fleeing her father’s house she takes with her a keepsake, perhaps something she relished and treasured close to her heart, much like today one gathering the most important valuables when having to flee the only home they have ever known. Sadly, by taking one of her father’s god’s the reader must assume that Rachel might not have known God personally, even after witnessing all that God had done for her husband and their family. God never left them and though they made many, many mistakes God was faithful, but was Rachel faithful in her heart to God. Surely, as her and Jacob laughed, talked and grew older together while raising children over the years he shared with his beloved the deep revelations, visions and dreams unveiled to him by God himself. But was it enough to capture Rachel’s attention and heart, ultimately compelling her to serve and obey God too.

Later, text reveals that Rachel lies to Jacob, never revealing that it was her who stole from her father that day when he was confronted by his father in-law Laban. I am left to wonder who Rachel was in her heart, revealing the two-faced mirror we all look into today forced to face ourselves, good or not. The face we have in public and the face we have in private, but in those days there weren’t any mirrors, just God staring back at his creation  trying to get Rachel to remove her mask when coming to Him.

Sadly, according to scripture it was Leah, not Rachel who was buried with Jacob alongside Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah. Yes, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but I love that Jacob chose to hold onto the unchanging hands of God and though he wrestled with his dysfunction and his hip was broken his conversion and metamorphosis had begun when laying that dysfunction at the Lord’s feet. I don’t think Rachel made a mistake that I couldn’t have made, but one must wonder if she ever brought any of it to the Lord’s feet, begging to be changed from the inside perhaps matching her beauty on the outside. In addition, the covenant wasn’t continued through her children Benjamin or Joseph, but through her sister Leah’s fourth son Judah.

I am reminded through this story to remain encouraged, because once one encounters God we cannot be in His presence and not change. Praise God for the old is gone and the new has surely come…

To read additional articles with online magazine Putting On The New, with creator Cherie Burbach click here.

 

DCL Ministries