Leah's Legacy

(If you are not familiar with the account of Jacob, Rachel and Leah, read Genesis 28-29.)

Leah.

Poor Leah.

If you’ve read her story, you can’t help but feel for her. A conniving father sneaks her into a wedding night that was meant for her prettier sister, and the husband is none too pleased. After all, he’d worked – gladly! – for seven years so he could have Rachel (lamb).  Not Leah (cow). So he works seven more years for Rachel, each day a virtual slap to the face of this unwanted woman.

So what’s a neglected wife to do to win the love of her husband? Give him sons! Fulfill that promise God made to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob:

“I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you.  I will keep My covenant between Me and you, and your future offspring throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant to be your God and the God of your offspring after you” (Genesis 17:6-7).

God was all for that: “When he saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb.” Then He proceeded to give her sons ‑ all within one paragraph of Old Testament narrative.

Because the Lord loved Leah, His eye was upon her in her loneliness. Leah named her first son Reuben, which sounds like the Hebrew word for seen. Because Leah declared “The Lord has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.”  This is the way, she must have thought, that God will take care of me: He will make my husband see that he loves me!

But Jacob didn’t.

She named her second son Simeon, heard, because “The Lord has heard that I am unloved, so he has given me this son.”  Maybe two sons would inspire Jacob to love her!

But Jacob didn’t.

When she gave birth to her third son, she named him Levi, which sounds like attached: “Now that I have given him three sons, my husband will become attached to me!”

But Jacob didn’t.

Certainly, Leah called the names of those three sons often every day, whether correcting them, praising them, or calling them to supper:

“Reuben, don’t speak so harshly to your brother!”

“Come, Simeon, join us at the table.”

“Levi, you are so dear to me.”

And with every spoken name, she would remember her longing for her husband’s love:

Seen. . .   The Lord has seen me; perhaps now my husband will see me for who I am.

Heard . . .The Lord has heard my cries; surely my husband will hear my cry and comfort me.

Attached . . . My husband will attach himself to me; I will no longer be lonely!

But Jacob didn’t.

Those names did not ring true of Leah’s husband, but they were (and are) always true of God. Not just for Leah, but for every wife, whether neglected, cherished, forgotten, esteemed, mistreated or anything else.

The Lord sees you . . .

The Lord hears you . . .

The Lord is attached to you . . .

. . . whether or not a husband ever is.

Before closing her womb for a time, God gave Leah a fourth son. She named him Judah, which sounds like the Hebrew word for praise. Leah declared, “I will praise the Lord” ‑ and there is no mention of her husband this time. For this name was about God alone, not her relationship with her husband. Leah saw her Lord, heard His love for her in the midst of her sorrows, and attached herself to Him in worship and praise.

When Leah named her fourth son Praise, she couldn’t have known that centuries later, through Judah’s lineage, a great shepherd king would come, who would govern God’s people as a man after God’s own heart.

Nor could she have foreseen that a thousand years after David, the One True Shepherd King, the only One worthy of all praise in every age, would enter this world to fulfill God’s covenant promise.

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. 

That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
(2 Corinthians 1:20)

David's One Thing

David was anticipating the throne of Israel, and fleeing jealous Saul. And when he cried out to God, what was the ONE THING he asked for? It was not physical protection, or leadership ability, or popularity within Israel, or even personal holiness.

“ONE THING I have asked of the Lord, and this is what I will seek:that I may dwell in God’s house all my days, to behold His delightful beauty,
and to worship in His presence.” (Ps 27:4)

David’s “one thing” was being close to God, no matter what. And how do we draw near to God, behold His presence, worship Him face to face? Through His written self-portrait, His self-revelation: the Bible. And through the Word-Become-Flesh, God-with-Us: Jesus.

In the Bible, God reveals His Being, His thoughts and desires, His intentions toward us, His character. And He reveals Himself most vividly in the person of Jesus Christ, whom we also get to know in God’s Word.

I’ve been told the Bible is “God’s Instruction Manual.” I’ve hunted for a “verse” just to make me feel better or give me specific direction in the moment. It can be tempting to read the Bible for the morality lessons, or to find “good examples” to follow. Or to read the Bible through the filter of our own soap box issues, to find proof texts for our theology of preference.

But when God speaks, it is not to give us a to-do list, or a band-aid for our hurts, or a human hero to emulate, or Three Steps to Successful Living. Instead, God gives us Himself.

The Pharisees missed this. They were so focused on the commands of Scripture that they missed the Messiah! Jesus confronted them: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:37-40)

Our “one thing,” what matters most in life, is essentially the same as David wrote 1000 years ago: 

to dwell with God through faith in Christ

to delight in who He is no matter our circumstances

to worship Him in all that we do, say and think.

When He Came Down . . .

Peace on Earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!

. . . . .

Pleased as Man with men to dwell,

Jesus, our Emmanuel!

[literally “God with us”]

What do you do when someone has offended you?

Neglected you?

Betrayed you?

Sinned against you?

My reflex is to turn away from the offender, the offense;

Withdraw. Take cover. Create distance: It’s a gut reaction.

Like touching a hot burner on the stovetop and recoiling, recovering, self-protecting.

Other temperaments have an opposite instinct: 
attack, lash back, respond in kind.

This Christmas month, the marvelous truth 
I’ve been turning over in my mind

(like a flawless diamond, radiant from every angle)

is this:

In Jesus’ coming to earth,

God moved toward His offenders.

He came to establish peace

with those waging war against Him.

Think of the scale of our offense:

The Creator of all made us in His image,

to be near Him,

to know Him intimately,

to love Him and be loved by Him –

But humanity – by the millions  –

rejected Him,

ignored Him,

offended Him,

betrayed Him.

His response to us defies human sensibility:

He did not turn His back, 
leaving us to our own foolish devices,

Letting humanity and creation spin out 
to its inevitable self-destruction.

Nor did he release His holy fire, destroying us

with the blaze of His (well-deserved) judgment.

Instead:

He entered our world, coming close to those 
who had pushed Him away.

He moved toward those who had rejected Him.

He ‘climbed into our skin and walked around in it.’

Think of the scale of His earthly entrance:

From a radiant throne at His Father’s side,

Where He enjoyed a perfect relationship with His Father,

In a perfect place, utterly pure,

He stooped down low . . .

into an animal barn,

a backwater town,

an occupied nation,

a sin-stained world,

To come face to face with His offenders.

He came in compassion, in gentleness;

He came not to shake His fist at us, 
but to reach out His welcoming arms.

He came, ‘God with us’

To live the life we could not,

To give us peace with God 
that we could not make ourselves,

To call us His friends when we were His enemies.

Even to die at the hands of mankind – 
the greatest offense imaginable –

So that He could rescue us 
by God’s strong and tender hand.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God

through the death of His Son, it is much more certain,

now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved

through His resurrected life. (Romans 5: 10)

 

Why Jesus?

In Christ, 
God lives, 
by His Holy Spirit. 

And God's call to Jesus is:
to preach the Truth to us,
to heal our brokenness,
to free us from our prisons,
to comfort our griefs.

We give him our dust and ashes,
our broken dreams and misguided expectations,
burnt down to nothingness;
He gives us in return His eternal Beauty.

He covers our sorrows with His holy Joy;
He strips away our heavy spirits;
He dresses us in His rich praise!

Why?

So that our roots will sink deep into the richness of His life,
so that we will grow in Him,
so that we will bear fruit that delights Him,
so that the fragrance of our lives will lift Him on high,
so that our lives will be a song for His glory.

(Isaiah 61:1-3, my paraphrase)

From Leadfoot to Cruise Control. By Grace.

I’ve blamed it on being a Boston native.

On living in the boonies ‑ with a long straight highway my only link to civilization.

On perpetually running 5 minutes late, while being unwilling to actually ARRIVE late.

But the bottom line is the same: I am a serial speeder. (And I’ve got the tickets to show for it.)

Sometimes, years pass without a ticket. Other times, I’ve gotten 2 or 3 in a short timespan, much to the chagrin of my husband – who, with affection and exasperation, has nicknamed me “Leadfoot” and “Danica.”

With each offense, I’ve gone to court. I’ve used my birthday money or sacrificed some personal luxury in order to pay the fine. In other words, I’ve done something that would help me feel the sting and the shame of my law-breaking.

Did that convert me from speed demon into law-abiding driver? Well … no. All it produced in me was an eagle eye for police cars; I was more careful about getting caught.

But last October’s ticket was different. This time, something happened that provided me with a far different, far more powerful incentive (no, I am not presently incarcerated). I was having dinner with a friend who actually works at the court where I was slated to appear, and laughingly told her I’d be stopping by her office soon. Immediately, she offered to take the ticket, in spite of my hesitation to relinquish it. (How would I ever learn if I didn’t pay?!) She insisted, then called me a few days later to report that the fine AND the points had been removed. Why? Because I was her friend. And to the officer who had pulled me over, that was enough.

This unexpected gift and its beautiful result rings with the melody of the gospel. I don’t speed anymore. Not from a sense of shame that I’ve done wrong, but from the glorious realization that God’s love for me overcomes my every offense against Him (even my driving ones).

The law tells me what’s right and wrong; yet it cannot create in me a positive desire to obey. Instead, it creates shame and a fear of punishment, followed by a sense of having paid my own debt, once I’ve written that check.

But grace — my due punishment wiped away by a merciful God, without a court appearance or payment — begets love and joy and obedience. (In this case, it also begets a heartfelt commitment to use my cruise control.)

Can we just be honest here? Grace isn’t fair! It’s counterintuitive. It’s offends our sense of “if-then.” I mean, if I “get away with” speeding, won’t I just do it again? Even my sons recognize the audacity of my unexpected pardon. “But Mom, how are you ever going to learn if you don’t have any consequences?” one son asked me, apparently concerned for my speedster soul.

Many Christians believe ‑ and teach ‑ a qualified, watered-down grace; a lukewarm substitute that pales in comparison with the radical, extravagant, all-encompassing grace that God has shown us in Christ. Perhaps our hesitation to embrace God’s immense grace is from the same heart as my son’s: concern that we’ll never be motivated to change if we are truly and fully freed from our debt. 

All I know is this: I no longer speed. I don’t want to trample on the grace that God has shown me. Romans 2:4 tells me that it is God’s kindness that leads me to repentance. And this repentance is joyful!

So, driving the speed limit has become yet another way that I worship my Saviour.

His grace has forever changed my “leadfoot” ways.

His grace has forever changed me.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—

it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:4-5

Recommended Reading:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2012/03/06/one-way-love/

Holiness by Grace, by Bryan Chapell

Radiance Instead of Shame

Those who look to the Lord are radiant, and their faces are never covered with shame (Psalm 34:5)

I had been pulling my weary self up by my own spiritual bootstraps for so long, I didn’t recognize how very weary I was. I mean, I knew I should be joyful (didn’t Christ die for me, after all?) that I shouldn’t obsess about my problems (shouldn’t I be setting my mind on things above not on earthly things?), I shouldn’t fear all the things that could go wrong tomorrow (didn’t Jesus say each day has enough trouble of its own?).

I just couldn’t figure out how to do all that.

So I would scold myself. Look at all God has done for you, given you, blessed you with! How can you be unhappy or depressed or anything less than joyful?! I shamed myself into setting my mind on the better things - yes, there were many of them! Whenever my doubts and fears would bubble to the surface, I would stuff them down again under that list of things I truly was thankful to God for, hoping God Himself would not even see them. But inevitably, they would rise again — along with my shame over not being more grateful and joyful.

And then in 2007, God brought a conflict and a crisis of faith into my life, which turned my shame upside-down and inside out. It’s taken me this long to figure out how to write about it, and put my finger on it more precisely. Because it’s all about things I would have said I knew five years ago - but now I really know them. About Scriptures I’d memorized and comprehended - but did not understand as deeply as I do now. (Do you find the Christian walk to be like that? It’s not a matter of learning something brand-spanking new every day, but learning it more deeply, making it more real.)

Here’s just one example:

I’d been treating Philippians 4:6-7 as a formula of sorts:

1) don’t worry or be anxious

PLUS

2) pray about those things and make sure you offer thanks, too,

EQUALS

3) God’s peace will relieve me of my uncomfortable emotions and feelings of guilt.

In fact, God’s invitation to come to Him with those fears and worries, and with thanksgiving, are anything but a formula for “How to Get Peace.” Instead, God’s Word — in this passage and every other one — is an open invitation into relationship with God, honest interaction with Him with everything in me, the good, the bad and the ugly. He does not shake his finger at me when I come as I am, tattered and torn and dirty; He listens and encourages with truth and love. And the next thing I know, I’m looking not at my own failures, but into the face of Jesus Himself — the Living Perfect Peace who guards my heart and mind. The more my vision fills with His perfections, the less room there is for anxiety and fear over my imperfections.

What a mystery is the gospel! That Jesus would literally take my place in the courtroom of God. That the One who never sinned suffered the penalties of my sin. That faith in Christ acquits me of shame and guilt before the throne of the Most High God. That God would judge me not on my imperfections, but on the perfections of Christ.

That God’s greatest desire would be for me to know Him and fellowship with Him. And that He did all that was necessary for that to happen — leaving me only to respond in faith and awe to His compassionate, costly initiative.

My shame is dead and gone. Not because I am without sin, but because God has declared me clean and pure in Christ. Not because I have no cause for guilt, but because He Himself has put it to death by his death and resurrection. Not because I am perfect, but because Jesus (I in Him, and He in me) is.

What has God taught you more deeply in your walk with Jesus?

Groaning for Glory

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth being compared to the glory that will be revealed in us.
. . . .
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
. . . .
We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express... the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
. . . .
And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him . . . to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.
. . . .
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? For I am convinced that [nothing] in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 8, excerpts

An unexpected death, a rebellious child, a catastrophic hurricane: every day, we find things to groan about.

Now, I don’t mean griping about your in-laws or your laundry or your weight. I’m talking about the kind of groaning God describes in Romans 8 where, along with all creation and with the Holy Spirit Himself, we groan to see how short this world (and our own heart)falls of His perfection and glory. We cry out to God for justice, righteousness, mercy. We long for heaven.

This creation groans under the weight of sin’s relentless curse; it bears thistles and thorns and unthinkable tragedies. And yet, those groanings are compared with the labor pains of childbirth! The pain which feels unbearable at the time is not a senseless one leading to destruction, but a fruitful pain which will bear life and satisfaction and joy.

Christians groan inwardly as we watch sin break God’s world, the same sin that broke Christ upon a splintered cross. And yet, we do not groan without hope! For we long for what has been guaranteed, for the fullness of what we already have in part: God’s sin-demolishing kingdom, fully realized.

Even God Himself groans with us! After all, how can we know what to pray for when we can’t understand so much of what we see? How can we specifically know what God’s will is for a seriously ill family member or an unemployed friend? Speechless, stunned, we cry out for God’s help in even knowing what to pray. And His Spirit intercedes, in perfect knowledge of God’s will!

The day is coming when our groans will give way to great glory. And as we look toward that day, God guarantees us two things: nothing on earth can pull us away from His love, and everything in our lives is designed to shape us to Christ-likeness.

In light of such powerful promises, may our groanings always be for God’s glory alone.

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
- Psalm 17:15