Differences

 

Monday, December 20, 2021

Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children.  The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins.  But the two children struggled with each other in her womb.  So she went to ask the Lord about it.  “Why is this happening to me?” she asked.  And the Lord told her, “The sons in your womb will become two nations.  From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals.  One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son.”  And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins!  The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat.  So they named him Esau.  Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau’s heel.  So they named him Jacob.  Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.  As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter.  He was an outdoorsman, but Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home.  Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.  Genesis 25:21-28

Wellington (the reddish guy on the left of the picture) and Gracie Cotton, (somewhat older than Wellie, and now passed) were as different as one could imagine.  Gracie would chase anything that moved in our yard; Wellie barks, but moves like a battleship turns.  Given the opportunity of an unlatched-gate, Gracie would wander the neighborhood, while Wellie ambles closer to home.  Gracie loved to snuggle next to any human with a pulse.  Wellie wants to know you’re there, but he’s the Esau among us; he will lick you in the face for food, but let’s not overdo it, thank you.

Differences in Isaac’s children were evident from before they were born – they were having a wrestling match even in Rebekah’s womb.  At birth, Esau was anxious and entered the daylight first, but Jacob was not letting him out of arm’s reach.  These boys’ descendants are still in a tug-of-war to this moment.

Differences are as natural in a family as similarities.  And it’s not just appearances.  There are the dimensions of preference and spirit also.  Esau preferred having a bow in his hands, stalking game in the woods.  Jacob was a homebody.  He was the kid who would’ve been teased in the 6^th grade as a “mama’s-boy”.  And Scripture doesn’t hesitate to underscore that.  Rebekah’s favorite of the two was Jacob, while Esau’s hunting and cooking skills made his Dad, Isaac, a happy man.

It took Esau and Jacob about 40 years to come to terms with their differences.  Jacob was the ambitious one, willing to connive and deceive his way to wealth and control, while Esau took what he wanted with the weight of the firstborn.  Still, Esau was destined to serve his younger brother, Jacob.  In the final chapters of their relationship ^{(see Genesis 33)} Jacob and Esau meet after a 20 year separation. The elder, Esau, has graciously come to terms with how he was wronged by his brother, and the younger brother-deceiver has gone straight, preferring to trust God’s way rather than his own manipulative bent.  The differences have melted into the distant past, while the bond of humanity and brotherhood have surfaced to the forefront. 

Ultimately the squabble between Jacob and Esau resurfaced in their descendants, the two nations Rebekah was told were in her womb, and these are constantly in the news reports to this day.  It appears the Arabs and Jews will be at it until Jesus comes, as assuredly as the Republicans and Democrats are fighting each other under the Capitol Dome.

What do we make of that?  We must embrace the take-away-lesson of human relationships we see in the footloose hunter and the heel-grabbing manipulator; whatever you sow, you reap.  It matters little whether you care more for the stalk-and-kill, or the scheme-and-grab, anything other than God’s love-and-be loved will eventually come-‘round just as you sent-it-‘round.

For You Today

Take stock of your own nature today, hunter or homebody, gregarious or introvert, or whatever of the Meyers-Briggs personality combinations[1] you discover, and decide today that God is the maker of them all.  Differences don’t have to keep brothers at each other’s throats.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Russell Brownworth (own work)   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For other posts on this text see No Place Before God and No Place Before God - Part 2

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[1] Go HERE to find out more about the Meyers-Briggs Personality indicator