SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12-30-2006
My Worship Time Focus: Bilhahs’s children
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Genesis 30:1-8
Message of the verse: “1 Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I die." 2 Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" 3 She said, "Here is my maid Bilhah, go in to her that she may bear on my knees, that through her I too may have children." 4 So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. 5 Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. 6 Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son." Therefore she named him Dan. 7 Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. 8 So Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed." And she named him Naphtali.”
Rachel was the love of Jacob’s life but he became angry with her because she was blaming him for not having any children, which was not Jacob’s fault at all. This was all part of what happens when people do not follow what it is that God has told them to do. This story is familiar in that Jacob’s grandmother Sarah did the same thing in order to have children with her maid and there was trouble at that time too. Rachel gives her maid to Jacob to sleep with in order for her to have children and she becomes Jacob’s wife or concubine, and in either case she had little rights as to what went on in the family. Rachel names the son born to Bilhah Dan which means judgment or vindication, because she now has a son. When you look at the book of Revelation and see the tribes mentioned there, Dan is missing. Bilhah has another son and Rachel name him Naphtali, and this name means “my struggle.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: God has a plan for me and I don’t think that there is a plan A and a plan B for me, but I do think that if I do not follow what the plan is that God can cause me to follow the plan, but perhaps I will miss the blessings, but maybe I will not miss the blessings. Romans 8:28 seems to come into play here in the life of Jacob, for I cannot believe that God can go against His Law, but because of His grace and mercy and because of His plans, which can never fail, He allows things like this to happen. As written before in my SD’s I believe that Leah was the wife that God had chosen for Jacob, and if Jacob would have consulted God and only had Leah as his wife then there could have been 12 son’s born to them, but that is not how it worked out and thus Rom. 8:28 comes into play here.
The Word of God has brought challenges into my life as I read and studied God’s Word this morning.
My Steps of Faith Today: Continue to seek God’s direction in all that I do as seen from Proverbs 3:5-6, and continue to seek to learn contentment from the Lord on this path of life that He is directing me onto.
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