Genesis 29-35: What's in a Name?

Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”
She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon.
Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” So he was named Levi.
She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children. -Gen. 29:32-35

Even today, some people study the meaning of a name before giving it to a child, and in some cases the meaning of those names follow throughout our lives.  Nancy, which is derived from the name Ann, and Ann, which is my middle name, both mean grace.  I like to think that the meaning of those names have been true in my life.  Not because I am graceful, which I am certainly not, but because my life has been and continues to be touched by God's grace.  What more could one ask?

When Leah named her sons, she considered her circumstances and their names followed.  'The Lord has seen my misery," she said when she gave Reuben his name.  Reuben ended up bearing a lot of misery for the family of Jacob.  He is the one who tried to protect Joseph when the brothers wanted to kill him.  He is the one that pleaded with Joseph on behalf of the brothers when they went down to Egypt for food.  He is the one who had to tell Jacob that Simeon had been left behind in Egypt.  Their names became prophetic.

Then, there is Judah.  The one from which the line of the Savior would come.  Only when Leah let go of her circumstances, only when she decided that she would praise the Lord in spite of her second class status in the eyes of Jacob, did redemption come.  Judah, the one whose descendant would redeem the world, was born out of a heart full of praise.

Genesis 28: The Reality of God

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  
And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;  
And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.  
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.  
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.  
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. - Gen. 28:12-17 KJV

Can you imagine that?  Jacob encounters the Lord, the God of Abraham and Isaac who makes wonderful promises to him and it scares the daylights out of him.  'How dreadful is this place!' he exclaimed.  'This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.'

God is that awesome.  Meeting him face to face changes us, it makes us aware of how totally unprepared we are to face him and his majesty.

Shortly before my mother died in December, I visited with her in one of her more lucid moments.  "I've been so foolish.' she kept repeating, 'so foolish." I believe in her final days here on earth she had already begun the transition to heaven and saw things we cannot see. I think her reaction is what our own reaction will be to seeing God:  fear and inadequacy.  Not having seen God, it is easy for us to pray and sing, asking him to come down.  We tend to think of God as being our size, hence someone we can order around, but he is not.  He is something much greater, much more awesome, much more majestic than anything we can conceive.  Our paltry ideas of what he is like pale in comparison to the reality of God.

Genesis 23-27: Despising the Birthright

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished.  He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom.)   Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright."  "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?"   But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.  
Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright. - Gen. 25:19-34 NIV

Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud. - Gen. 27:38 NIV

How often do we despise our birthright from God.  Oh, we love the Father, but we're busy with our own lives.  We're hungry, but we don't want to wait to be fed by the father.  We'll take sustenance wherever we can find it.  We come in from the field and we want to be fed right now.  Just like Esau, satisfying our immediate hunger is the only thing we can think of.  In our desperate haste, to succeed, to have our needs met, we decide that our birthright as children of God is not that important.

Rather than taking the time to really read and study God's word, we read 'Christian' novels or watch a renown televangelist.  This fills us up, makes us feel we have been fed, but it's like eating marshmallows instead of a good meal.  We grow fat and weak at the same time.  We know we're famished, but we sell our birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.

Genesis 13-22:: Tested Not Tempted

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. - Gen. 22:1 NIV

There is a big difference between being tested and being tempted.  Enemies tempt, friends test.  Enemies tempt us because they know it may bring about our downfall.  Friends test because it they  know it will make us a better, stronger person.  Satan only tempts us.  He is not interested in our well-being.  He is not interested in our becoming better, in our becoming all we were created to be.  He is only interested in destroying the promise.

God, on the other hand is our friend.  He doesn't want to see us torn down, only brought up.  All of the testing that we receive of God is for our own good.  It is important to recognize the difference.  God tries us to prove what we are made of.  Just as the dross is separated from gold when it is melted down, it is when we are tried in the fire that our love for the Father, if it is true, is shown.   As God told Abraham when he stopped him from sacrificing Isaac, "Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” - Gen. 22:12 NIV

Genesis 9-12: Get Thee Out!

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. - Gen. 12:1-3 KJV 

How many times does God tell us to get out and we don't hear or refuse to acknowledge that we have heard.  God never meant for us to have comfortable stagnant lives.  He meant for us to have lives of purpose, lives that produce blessing for others and for ourselves.  We can't do that sitting in our recliner in front of the TV.  'Get away,' God says, 'away from all that is comfortable, away from all that is familiar, from all we have ever known.  Get up, get out and I will show you where you are to go.'

Most of us are waiting for God to show us what he wants us to do, but that's a good excuse for doing nothing.  God tells us to get up, get out of or comfort zone and then, and only then, he will show us where we are to go and what we are to do.  Get up and get out, or as the King James translation says, "Get thee out!"

Genesis 4-8: And God Remembered

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; - Gen. 8:1 KJV

I don't know about you, but I've been through the flood.  I've been in waters so deep, I tired from doing nothing but treading water and feared that drowning was eminent and even preferred to the constant waves that threatened to take me under.  But, just like Noah, God remembered me.  While I may have lost sight of him, I was never gone from his sight.  He remembered me, he lifted me up above the waves.  He set my feet on solid ground.  Not only does God save, He restores.  We are washed clean of all the old muck in which we were entangled.  He strips everything off that was pulling us down.  He sets us free.  He does not remember our sin, the state we were in, but he remembers us.

Genesis 1-4: In His Image

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. - Gen. 1:26-27 KJV

God, the creator of the universe is so majestic, so great, so grand that we are unable to fully understand him.  One of the things I have had the most trouble comprehending is how can we be created in God's image when he obviously must be much larger than us if he holds the entire universe in the palm of his hand.  I could never get comfortable with the idea that we were just miniature replications of God.

My thinking has changed somewhat after observing the death of my mother.  I watched her body deteriorate and her mind fail, but she never lost her desire to see heaven and her Savior.  On the morning of her death, when I held her hand for the last time, I became acutely aware that the earthly body which she left behind was nothing more and had never been anything more than the outside covering.  Just a shell, like one that the hermit crab lives in for a while then abandons for a bigger and better model.  Our spirit, the essence of life, is the being that was created in God's image.

As Jesus, God's own son told the woman at the well, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." - John 4:24 KJV  

If anyone knew the Father, knew what the essence of God was, it was his Son.  How different our lives would be if we could see the world, our lives, all of the material surroundings as the temporary fixtures they truly are. What would the next year bring if that knowledge permeated our existence...if we saw ourselves as we truly are, spirit beings created in the image of God?