When you’re desperate, how do you behave? Today’s reading features a sequence of encounters among desperate players—desperate for a child, for a piece of fruit, for freedom, for good fortune, for an honest wage. And as we’ve come to expect, they don’t always use noble means to secure their more-or-less noble desires.
I find some interesting commentary here on our own use of desperate measures. For one thing, the story of Rachel and her child-envy reminds us that waiting it out—whatever “it” is—is sometimes simpler than forcing a solution. Eventually, God does remember Rachel and gives her a son of her very own; meanwhile, she’s socially engineered a host of step-kids who will, as the story unfolds, pose a vital threat to her boy.
In the bartering between Jacob and Laban, too, comes a subtle reminder that, as one dear friend puts it, “life is cumulative”—that is, we inherit the consequences of the life patterns we establish along the way. It’s hard not to read Jacob’s appeal to his own “honesty” as ironic, especially in light of his patterns of deceit and cunning. So perhaps it’s no surprise that, when Laban moves to secure his own resources through deliberate deceit, Jacob resorts to old-fashioned magic to manipulate the flock’s mating patterns. Desperate measures indeed.
It turns out that, when we’re desperate, our default patterns kick in, and those behavioral tendencies don’t always reflect our best selves. It makes me wonder how I might change my everyday responses so that, when I face desperate desires, I operate out of a more trusting, less controlling, approach to my insecurities. But that’s just me.
- How would others describe your “default” approach to desperate circumstances?
- When has waiting it out, trusting that God will work in and through a challenge, brought you new life?
- What other details did you notice in today’s reading?
Prayer: We’re pretty good at masterminding our way to get what we want, O God. Teach us the simpler way of trust. Amen.
Breath Prayer: And God // remembered Rachel.
