If It Be So, Why Am I Thus?

“And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord.”-Genesis 25:22

Why?  This searching question has accompanied mankind through the ages.  It is a question that has driven, provoked, plagued, and befuddled mankind since the beginning.  Why?  Why are we thus?

The son of Abraham.  God called Abraham to leave his home and country; called him to journey to the unknown.  God promised that he would make Abraham a mighty nation.  Abraham believed God, and one day had Isaac.  Isaac was the beginning of the fulfilment of that promise and would be the beginning of this nation. Issac’s wife Rebekah was a woman of faith herself, having never met Isaac, she went in faith and followed the calling of God into the unknown.  She was brought to Isaac and became the mother of the people of promise. In the twenty second verse of Genesis chapter twenty-five, we find Rebekah pregnant with twins, one to be called Esau and the other Jacob.  (Jacob would later be renamed Israel and have sons that would become the Israelites.  God’s chosen people.  Through this lineage would come the Savior Jesus Christ.)  As she is carrying them the children are struggling together within her.  Children that Isaac had entreated the Lord for.  The twins came to her as an answer to prayer, and now the children are bringing to her what is sure to be fear, pain, and anxiety.  The fear only a pregnant mother can know.  The anxiety of feeling unrest within the womb and knowing the helplessness of not being able to do anything about it.  Again, a result of Isaac’s prayer, to which she replied, “if it be so, why am I thus?”  As if to say: “why is this happening to me?”  The scripture tells us that the ways of the Lord are past finding out.  That his ways are higher than our ways.  To the sufferer, this can seem insufficient.  As it is mankind’s nature to want to know why; often, when we lack contentment, we will push for insight.  Settling in our minds to search out our own resolutions.  Doctors, therapists, self-help, social media, friends, and much more may be employed to help us find more insight into this great question of “why, and why me?”.  Now, please don’t take me to mean that this is without merit.  I am sure Rebekah would have loved to get an ultrasound, but there was no way to know or understand.  Yet, she was still wiser than many today in that her first instinct was to inquire of the Lord.  She didn’t go to Isaac, or her friends or confidantes.  She went to inquire of the Lord.  To wait before him and take his instructions on the matter.  She went to the one who understands it all and she got her answer.  The answer was that two nations are in her womb, and the present struggle is predestined to bring about a future deliverance.

This can be said of many things.  The present struggle we feel is predestined to bring about a future deliverance.  To bring forth something in God’s plan for our lives that we cannot see.  That is bigger than us.  The walk of faith rests on the pillar that God is in control.  No matter what.  The reason we don’t always see, but we must trust.  Therefore, in all things we must inquire of the Lord.  Go to Him, because he knows, and we don’t.  He is the one who can speak peace, knowledge, wisdom, and contentment to our hearts, our fears, our cares, and our deepest concerns.  The only one that can truly answer the question: “if it be so, why am I thus?” 

Owe No Man, But Love

 “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8

 Have you ever owed anyone money?   Or has anyone owed you and not paid?  It’s an uncomfortable relationship to be in; and the larger the sum the more uncomfortable things become.  We owed a tremendous debt to God and could not pay.  So Christ step in and absorbed the debt, and brought life and love to whosoever will.  

To truly understand or even begin to approach the depth of this scripture we must first understand the love that Paul is speaking about.  To do this, we can reach back to Romans chapter five where Paul writes: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.  For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Can you see in this text the amazing love of God?  The passion of Christ?  How that the Son of God left heaven to be broken for you and for me?  To be tortured, rejected, and humiliated for you and me?  The just for the unjust.  This is the love of Christ.  That he gave.  He gave his time, himself, his life, his all; for you and me.  My sin was on his shoulders says the hymn writer.  My debt, he paid.  I owed God, but Christ wrote the check.  We live in a qualify and quantified world.  One must be qualified and quantified before you can justify giving them anything.  Justify giving, loving, aiding, helping, ministering, lending or embracing.  It’s much like when you go to borrow money.  Before you can borrow money, the lender wants to see if you have justifiable collateral against what they plan to lend you.  They want to qualify and quantify you.  They want you to fill out an application with your assets listed and references they can call to inquire about your character and past performance.  You must articulate to them what you’re worth before they decide to give you anything.  What if God had done that to us before he sent Son?  Would we have qualified?  Certainly not.  We must see and understand that freely we have received and freely we must give.  We are debtors to everyman in love, because our example became a debtor himself.  Christ placed himself as a debtor to all men; who am I to do anything less?  The man in the gutter, the women on the stoop, the drunks, prisoners, murders, gangsters.  I am indebted to love them.  This is contrary to the theme of the world.  The world loves its own.  It loves those like them.  Those that make them feel rich, safe, happy, familiar and comfortable.  We are called to love all mankind, even those who seek to torment and destroy us.  To take from us, and despitefully use and persecute us.  Jesus pleaded to God on behalf of his persecutors: “Father forgive for they know not what they do.”

 Second Corinthians says: “For the love of Christ constraineth us” The love of Christ compels, drives, and presses us.  The same chapter goes to say that we are “ambassadors for Christ.”  The ambassador goes out as a representative.  If you are sanctified and serving Jesus.  The love you show to people may be the only representation of Christ they ever see.  Their introduction to the gospel may be a cup of cold water, a warm jacket, a bus ticket, or new shoes.  A listening ear, or time of intercessory prayer.  This love is like a foreign language in the world today, and as ambassadors for Christ we must carry his message.  At the risk of our all.