Encountering God III

How to Satisfy the Hunger beneath the Hunger

Genesis 29:15-35 (NIV) 

    Laban said to him, "Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be."

    [16] Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. [17] Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful. [18] Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel."

    [19] Laban said, "It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me." [20] So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

    [21] Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her."

    [22] So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. [23] But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her. [24] And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant.

    [25] When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?"

    [26] Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. [27] Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work."

    [28] And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. [29] Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. [30] Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.

    [31] When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. [32] 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."

    [33] 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.

    [34] 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.

    [35] 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.

1. Encounter with God does not necessarily bring immediate remedy for inner emptiness because our underlying affections have not yet been transferred to God

"We still need to feel that our life matters in the scheme of things. We still want to merge our selves with some higher self-absorbing meaning in trust and in gratitude. But if we no longer have God, how are we to do this? One of the first ways that occurred to the modern person, as Otto Rank saw, was the romantic solution. The self-glorification that we need in our innermost being, we now look for in the love partner. What is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to this position? We want to be rid of our faults. We want to be rid of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified. We want to know that our existence hasn't been in vain. We want redemption, nothing less ...Needless to say, human beings can't give you that." Ernest Becker, “The Denial of Death”

2. One of the underlying realities of life is that when we think we find a Rachel, in the morning, it will be Leah!

Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and really want, something that they cannot find in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of another foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not talking about unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There is something that when we first hold on to, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and a person may find a very interesting job: but that it, that something always escapes us in the morning. C. S. Lewis

3. What do we need to take our deepest adoration off of, and put them on God so that we can get our lives and future back?