I have previously written about the providence of God in a June 2025 article here on What Christians Should Know. In that article, I talked about Genesis 24, where God’s invisible hand was leading, guiding, and directing people and events in Abraham’s servant’s quest for Rebekah, Isaac’s future bride. The story that unfolds is one that unveils the invisible provision of God, who works within creation to manage all things according to His will. Notably, in Genesis 24, there are neither any direct revelations from God nor any miracles, yet divine providence is guiding everything.
Subsequently, if we now fast-forward to the life of Jacob, we see divine providence at work in his life as well. Recall that Jacob had to escape where he grew up because he tricked his father, Isaac, out of a covenantal blessing. In fact, Jacob sinned against God, his father, mother, and brother in order to obtain a blessing by deceit. Jacob is thus forced to flee his home to escape the consequences of his sin. On his way to exile, God makes a promise to Jacob at Bethel (Genesis 28:13-15) that Jacob will return home. Decades later, in Genesis 31:3, God commands Jacob to return home from exile. The point is that in between promise and command, God was providentially directing Jacob the whole time. This brings us to our text for today.
Genesis 29:1 to 30:24 says:
Then Jacob set out on his journey, and went to the land of the people of the east. He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, because they watered the flocks from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, they would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.
Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.” So he said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” And they said, “We know him.” And he said to them, “Is it well with him?” And they said, “It is well, and here is his daughter Rachel coming with the sheep.” Then he said, “Look, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them.” But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”
While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, and the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of his mother’s brother Laban. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and raised his voice and wept. Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.
So when Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, “You certainly are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.
Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in figure and appearance. Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man; stay with me.” So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him like only a few days because of his love for her.
Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time is completed, that I may have relations with her.” So Laban gathered all the people of the place and held a feast. Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him; and Jacob had relations with her. Laban also gave his female slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a slave. So it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, “What is this that you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you deceived me?” But Laban said, “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve with me, for another seven years.” Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. Laban also gave his female slave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her slave. So Jacob had relations with Rachel also, and indeed he loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with Laban for another seven years.
Now the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was unable to have children. Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.”Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon. And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi. And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him [o]Judah. Then she stopped having children.
Now when Rachel saw that she had not borne Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I am going to die.” Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Then she said, “Here is my female slave Bilhah: have relations with her that she may give birth on my knees, so that by her I too may obtain a child.” So she gave him her slave Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob had relations with her. Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan. And Rachel’s slave Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. So Rachel said, “With mighty wrestling I have wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed.” And she named him Naphtali.
When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. And Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, “How fortunate!” So she named him Gad. And Leah’s slave Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. Then Leah said, “Happy am I! For women will call me happy.” So she named him Asher.
Now in the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrake fruits in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” But she said to her, “Is it a small matter for you to take my husband? And would you take my son’s mandrakes also?” So Rachel said, “Therefore he may sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.” When Jacob came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must have relations with me, for I have indeed hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night. God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Then Leah said, “God has given me my reward, because I gave my slave to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. And Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob. Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good gift; finally my husband will acknowledge me as his wife, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. Afterward she gave birth to a daughter, and named her Dinah.
Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. So she conceived and gave birth to a son, and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” And she named him Joseph, saying, “May the Lord give me another son.”
Before I begin to zoom into the text, allow me to zoom out and make some “big-picture” observations. As mentioned in the introduction, the prior verses describe events that happened in between God’s promise made at Bethel (Genesis 28:13-15) and His command for Jacob to return from exile (Genesis 31:3). Why is this relevant? I have three observations on providence from the text.
First, in Genesis 29:1-30:24, Jacob does not have a dream, there is no fresh revelation from God, and neither is there any prayer. Yet, God was providentially directing all things the entire time. Meaning what? That silence does not equal absence. You see, because God has not abandoned the creation that He has made, it means He will not leave creation alone. Thus, although a person may not sense God’s presence or feel as if God is not there, that doesn’t imply He is not active. Silence does not equal absence.
Second, providence is not universal. If we were to compare the story of Abraham’s servant in search for a bride in Genesis 24 to Jacob’s story in Genesis 29, there are few similarities but many differences. In both narratives, a man searches for a wife and meets a woman at a well who happens to be beautiful.
Yet, in Genesis 24, Abraham’s servant is sent proactively on behalf of a father (Abraham) during a time of prosperity and peace. The servant’s mission is prayer-saturated, and the servant is not focused on beauty but instead waits for the woman to pass a test of character. And, in that narrative, the woman (Rebekah) serves the man, Abraham’s servant.
Contrast this to Genesis 29. There, no one is proactively sent, but Jacob is forced to flee his home in a time of strife to escape being murdered by his brother. In Jacob’s narrative, there is no prayer and no searching for divine guidance. Moreover, Jacob was focused on outward looks in that he saw Rachel’s beauty and sheep and did not wait for any tests of character. Finally, Jacob serves Rachel, not vice versa.
The point of these comparisons? That providence is not universal. God was provident in both situations, but how that played out in the lives of two people was very different. And thus, providentially speaking, what happens in the life of one Christian need not apply in the life of another. There is one universal goal for all of God’s elect, but the route by which we all get there will look different. Your path may not look like mine and that’s okay. What worked for me may or may not work for you, and that’s okay too. Thus, when it comes to matters of providence, we all should be wise and temper our perspectives with grace; this means not judging based on personal preferences when there is no clear mandate from Scripture. It would in fact be dangerous to apply my own personal experience and then use that as a template for how your life should play out.
The third point builds upon the second. As mentioned in a prior post, providence is our diary, not our Bible, meaning God’s Word provides us with objective, universal principles that apply equally to all people everywhere, all the time. The Bible is our guidebook for life, but life isn’t another Bible. This makes sense considering that God’s Word comes from a holy, omniscient, and omnipotent God who already knows the end. It thus makes sense to follow His instructions. By contrast, life is filled with people, ideas, and situations saturated with sinners, sinful ideas, and sinful consequences, and we are all limited by the present. Finally, because providence is our diary and not our Bible, it is always clearer looking back as opposed to trying to discern things in the present. Providence isn’t our Bible because providence is often unclear in the moment.
At the top, I used the word exile to describe Jacob’s travel away from home (in the Promised Land) in order to live with his uncle Laban in Padan-aram (in modern-day Turkey). As a fugitive, Jacob was thrust out of his place of comfort into a figurative wilderness. Being away from home, he was thus lacking parents, protection, wealth, or progeny. But, biblically speaking, this is the point of separation: Training for leadership is usually preceded by exile in the wilderness. Examples include Moses, David, Elijah, and Jesus. And thus, as it is commonly said as it applies to the kingdom of heaven, “the way up is down.”
The great hope that the doctrine of providence gives you and I is that right now and every moment from now on, the Lord isn’t far away and disinterested. Instead, He is actively weaving His fingers through the fabric of reality to bring all things together for good for those who love Him. And He is also weaving all the seemingly disconnected fibers of creation into the apex of human history: the return of Christ the King.
Let us now zoom into our text.
Genesis 29:1-3 says:
Then Jacob set out on his journey, and went to the land of the people of the east. He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, because they watered the flocks from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, they would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.
The text tells us that the stone that covered the well was large, implying that it had significant weight. Consequently, it took multiple people to move the stone, evidenced by the text using the plural pronoun “they” to refer to unnumbered people who had to move it (see Genesis 29:8). Yet, as Genesis 29:10 makes clear to us, Jacob single-handedly moved this large stone by himself. This is relevant because it would seem that this act of great strength gives the Bible reader insight into why Laban would want Jacob to work for him and why Laban began his negotiation with Jacob by asking his nephew what he wanted. Genesis 29:13-15 says:
So when Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, “You certainly are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.
Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?”
Before we move on, I cannot gloss over a repeating theme that has already established itself within the Bible’s first book: a man meeting a woman at a well. That is to say, when Abraham’s servant went looking for a bride for Isaac, he found Rebekah at a well. Here, in Genesis 29, Jacob meets Rachel at a well. And likely the most famous well meeting happened between the Lord Jesus Himself and the Samaritan woman. Accordingly, in John 4:4-26, the text says:
And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, tired from His journey, was just sitting by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away to the city to buy food. So the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, though You are a Jew, are asking me for a drink, though I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus replied to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” She said to Him, “Sir, You have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do You get this living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well and drank of it himself, and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw water.” He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said to Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this which you have said is true.” The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is [spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am He, the One speaking to you.”
What is crucial not to miss is that Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Additionally, just as God, in Genesis 28, sought after Jacob⎯who was wandering in brokenness in flight from sinning against his family⎯God sought after the Samaritan woman whom we discover is living in the midst of an immoral relationship. Subsequently, Christ offered this woman not physical, temporal water but living water in John 4:13. This phrase living water is crucial because as Iain M. Duguid writes in Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace:
“Living water is the Greek Old Testament’s translation of the term for the water produced from the sacrifice of the red heifer in Numbers 19: water that purified everyone whom it touched. Jesus was offering her cleansing from her life of sin and abuse, a fresh start before the Father who is continually seeking worshippers who will bow before him in spirit and truth. The result of that conversation was life for the woman and many of her townspeople. The Father was finding and welcoming in his worshippers.”
Of course, what Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman was better than the red heifer in the book of Numbers. You see, whoever offered the red heifer sacrifice became ritually unclean because of contact with the ashes of sacrifice. Hence, in order to make others clean, the one offering the sacrifice had to become unclean. But what this Samaritan woman did not know yet was that Jesus was on His way to the Cross where He would offer Himself as the sacrifice on our behalf. He would take on our sins and become defiled for us so that we would be cleansed of our sins. The living water Christ was offering then was a once-and-for-all, total, complete, and eternal cleansing.
I mention all this to draw your attention to the fact that Genesis lays the foundation for everything else that will follow. That is, Genesis 29 connects to John 4, which connects to Numbers 19, which points directly to the Cross.
Back to our narrative. When Jacob meets Rachel for the first time, what is equally interesting is both what the text says and what it does not say. Genesis 29:11-13 says:
Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and raised his voice and wept. Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father. So when Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things.
We certainly do not know what “all” refers to⎯as in Jacob told Laban all these things⎯but missing from Jacob’s words is God. Furthermore, Jacob does not mention the sin he committed back home, the dream of a ziggurat at Bethel, or the divine promise to bring Jacob back to the Promised Land.
On the note of not mentioning God, consider what happens next in the narrative. Verses 15-18 say:
Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in figure and appearance. Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”
What is interesting to note here is that although Jacob has already received a direct promise from God, he doesn’t stop to consider and consult God here. Laban asks Jacob, “What’s your price?” and then Jacob develops his own answer: “Seven years.” In other words, Jacob at this point in his spiritual maturity is still living like a spiritual orphan and not relying on divine strength. Instead, he sees the girl he wants and then says, “I will work for a time that I determine.”
Regardless, when we fast-forward seven years, it’s now time for Jacob to receive his bride. Yet, in what transpires, it seems as if God has a sense of humor. That is to say, many of the tricks Jacob played on his father, Isaac, were now being played on Jacob. First, Jacob nudged his father along with game and wine (Genesis 27:25). Now, Laban wined and dined Jacob. Genesis 29:21 says:
So Laban gathered all the people of the place and held a feast.
Second, Jacob previously took advantage of Isaac’s blindness and pretended to be his brother, Esau. Now, Laban waits until nighttime to swap Rachel for Leah. Verse 23 says:
Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him; and Jacob had relations with her.
Third, Leah was previously described as having “weak eyes,” but it was Jacob’s eyes that fooled him. He was unable to see that Leah was pretending to be her sibling. Sound familiar?
Fourth, let us remember that Jacob stole the firstborn’s blessing. Now, Laban follows a similar custom of honoring the first child: He steals the second-born daughter away from Jacob and gives the firstborn daughter to Jacob instead. Genesis 29:25-27 says:
So it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, “What is this that you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you deceived me?” But Laban said, “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve with me, for another seven years.”
Fifth, and finally, we just read that when Jacob sees Rachel was swapped for Leah, he realizes he’s been duped. He then tells Laban, “Why then have you deceived me?” And now in a grand irony, Jacob is deceived and then asks Laban the same question Isaac could have rightfully asked Jacob: “What is this that you have done to me? Why then have you deceived me?”
If we now fast-forward, Jacob ends up with both sisters as wives, Leah and Rachel. Then, in verse 31, it says:
Now the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was unable to have children.
The Hebrew word for “unloved” can also be translated as “hate” or “be an enemy.” This is relevant because in that culture, a woman’s sense of protection and security was largely dependent on her husband. Thus, if Leah was unloved by Jacob, her overall position in life was uncertain and insecure. This is important because the Lord saw her unloved state and then had compassion for her. This is who God is: one who has concern for those whose lives are difficult regardless⎯speaking in broad terms⎯of whether they played a role in their misery. That is of course to say that we ought not to forget that Leah willingly played a role in deceiving her now-husband. So, her being unloved can partially be explained by her own sin. Regardless, God protecting and securing the needy will now lay the foundation for the twelve tribes of Israel. After all, the first four members of the twelve tribes of Israel were the sons of an unloved mother: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah.
Additionally, Leah being unloved nudged her to create an idol in her heart of husband approval. As it says in Genesis 29:32-34:
Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.” Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon. And she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi.
Leah, however, is not the only one with idols. Rachel also has a few of her own, one of which is to outdo her sister in producing children. Genesis 30:1 says:
Now when Rachel saw that she had not borne Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I am going to die.”
Birthing and mothering children is a natural and healthy desire that God has given to women. In general, girls want to have babies and have a family. This is a normal and good thing. Yet, as with anything else in life, it is possible for a person to take a good thing and then make it the most important thing. As it says in Proverbs 30:15-16:
The leech has two daughters: “Give” and “Give.”
There are three things that will not be satisfied, four that will not say, “Enough”: Sheol, the infertile womb, earth that is never satisfied with water,
And fire that never says, “Enough.”
In fact, Rachel’s desire for children was so strong, she was willing to sin to satisfy the demands of her idol. And so, she resorted to the Sarai method of bearing children. Recall that back in Genesis 16, Sarai, Abraham’s wife, gave her maid Hagar to her husband. And so, Genesis 30:2-8 says:
Then Jacob’s anger burned against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Then she said, “Here is my female slave Bilhah: have relations with her that she may give birth on my knees, so that by her I too may obtain a child. So she gave him her slave Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob had relations with her. Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son.” Therefore she named him Dan. And Rachel’s slave Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. So Rachel said, “With mighty wrestling I have wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed.” And she named him Naphtali.
What is also evident from the last verse we just read is that in Rachel’s heart, children were secondary to besting her sister.
So Leah had idols, Rachel had idols, I have idols, and you have idols. So what is idolatry? It’s when someone or something occupies the God-sized hole at the center of your being. Everyone has to fill that hole with something; either God fills it with Himself or we try to fill it with an inferior substitute. So how does one discern what their idol is? It’s when they are honest with themselves and say, “I have to have this or else my life will be empty.”
Be mindful that idolatry can actually work for a time as long as constant sacrifice is provided. That is because all idol worship is based on works: You sacrifice something and then you get something in return, such as offspring, body image, wealth, or esteem. But, if you fail to pay the price that the idol demands, the result is despair. Despair is a negative emotion, so if a person were to work backwards, they can uncover the identity of an idol. For example, are you worried? Angry? Fretting? That thing whose loss or threatened loss crushes your soul is an idol.
Truly, unsatisfied idolatry is a blessing in disguise because identification of the idol is a prerequisite for turning away from it. The Bible characters in many ways had things much simpler because they had literal idols they could easily identify and then destroy. You and I, on the other hand, have to identify the spiritual idols that have no form and dwell in our hearts.
Idolatry is also not driven by reason or logic. That is to say that in our Scripture focus, Leah held on to both idols and an orthodox theology. Again, in Genesis 29:32-33, it says:
Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.” Then she conceived again and gave birth to a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.”
Leah’s words reveal that what she really wanted was the love of her husband. Yet, Leah invoked God’s name and recognized His power, but He was merely a means to an end: a functional deity that served to satisfy her desires.
So, what ended up happening to Rachel? Well, the climax of the narrative of the struggle between two sisters happens in Genesis 30:22, which says:
Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. So she conceived and gave birth to a son, and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” And she named him Joseph, saying, “May the Lord give me another son.”
God remembering Rachel does not imply that He forgot about her. Rather, that’s the Hebrew Old Testament’s way of saying that at that time, God acted based on a former promise. That promise, of course, came at Bethel in Genesis 28:13-15. God promised Jacob descendants “like the dust of the earth.” The text also says that God listened to Rachel, meaning she was praying to him. This means in contrast to the Rachel we read about at the start of the chapter⎯who had her eyes on her husband and her sister⎯the Rachel now took her barrenness to God, the only One who could truly help her. You see, God never forgets about His people but repeatedly in Scripture, we see that God will act based on His irrevocable promises when His people stop focusing on everything else and focus on what’s of first importance: God Himself.
Jacob, Leah, and Rachel were all broken people, but God now chose to bless Rachel not because of who she was but in spite of it. Grace is grace because it is unmerited favor. This is what makes God unique and special in contrast to all other religious systems: The Lord offers salvation based on grace, not on works. Salvation is based on God, not on you. This is why only the Lord can satisfy the God-filled hole in your heart because that void was made by Him and can only be filled with Christ. With Jesus, there is no such thing as unsatisfied idolatry but satisfied faith. And God doesn’t require your works for salvation because nothing you or I do can ever impress God; no work can ever surpass the value of what Christ already did in His life, death, and Resurrection.
When God remembered Rachel, it was because the Lord was fulfilling His plan in the life of His servant. Yes, Rachel may have wrestled with her idols, but God’s purpose for all His elect is to finish the plan that He started. Yes, oftentimes it is a slow, gradual process, but no one can derail the divine plan. And God uses broken people all the time to reveal it’s not about them; it’s about Him.
Again, as Iain M. Duguid writes in Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace:
“God takes bent instruments and slowly begins to straighten them. He takes untuned hearts and slowly begins to tune them to His praise. It all takes time, but God is not in a hurry. God’s consistent purpose, during whatever times of exile and disappointment he takes you through, is to prepare you for future service and a deepened appreciation of His grace (Ephesians 2:10).”
As I said at the top:
On his way to exile, God makes a promise to Jacob at Bethel (Genesis 28:13-15) that Jacob will return home. Decades later, in Genesis 31:3, God commands Jacob to return home from exile. The point is that in between promise and command, God was providentially directing Jacob the whole time.
The promise that God had made to all His children is that “He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). The great hope for all believers is that in our lives, the promise already exists; God is thus working on and in you to bring your sanctification to fulfillment.
Dr. C. H. E. Sadaphal