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?”