Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Then Rebekah said to Isaac, "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.
So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and commanded him: "Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother's father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham."
Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.
Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, "Do not marry a Canaanite woman," and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram.
Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
Genesis 27:46-47, 28:1-9
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks we fall in the pursuit of contentment in life is that we seek to please people instead of the Lord.
Maybe you can relate because I know I can.
Whether it’s our parents, our spouse, our children, our co-workers, our boss, our fellow Christian brothers and sisters, the list can go on and on with no shortage of people we can be connected to that want to be satisfied in some way. The end result is that we seem to always be under constant pressure to keep everyone happy, and as so often is the case, we find everyone wanting something to make them happy, sometimes even contradicting one another. If we’re not careful, we can end up frustrated, despaired, stressed, and forlorn because we learn that we can’t make everyone happy, no matter how hard we try.
It’s enough to make us wonder to ourselves:
"Will I ever be able to please everyone?"
Well, if we asked this question to the Lord, I’m confident that He would answer with a resounding, "NO!" In fact, He would let you know in a hurry that trying to please any human being is an exercise in pure folly for He doesn’t desire that we live to please people. Rather, He wants us to live in a way that pleases Him.
You see, that’s the key to breaking our seemingly endless frustration with failing to please everyone. For if we place our full focus on pleasing God in life, then everything else will fall into place. And if living in a way that pleases God doesn’t please others, then all we need to do is say that we’re sorry they are disappointed but there simply isn’t any other way that we’re going to live. We need to make it clear that compromising God’s life expectations for us is not negotiable.
In the end translation, the Lord makes it clear in His Word that anyone who believes in Him isn’t to conform to the ways of the world but rather, conform to His ways, not just some of the time but always.
So what does this have to do with our message today as we look at the closing verses of Genesis, chapter 26 and then the opening verses of the next chapter?
Well, there we find Esau, fresh off his resent-filled grudge and intention to kill his younger brother Jacob, deciding to do something else in order to try and get back into good favor with his father. For hearing that Jacob was ordered to not marry a Canaanite woman as he was sent away to take a wife from his uncle Laban’s (Rebekah’s brother) daughters, Esau decided to marry a woman first who was not a Canaanite. And not only did he do this but he married a woman who was related to Isaac’s father who we know was the late, great father of the Israelite nation, Abraham. This happened through Esau taking a daughter of Ishmael to be his bride. We shouldn’t be so naïve to believe this was purely accidental and through his actions, we see Esau seeking to please his father before he thought about pleasing the Lord. Worse of all, he was carrying out his own will instead of seeking the Lord, asking for His will in the matter.
So all this presents a few questions for us to ponder:
1. How often do we seek the Lord to find out what His will is for our lives, to find out what He wants done?
2. How often in the midst of difficult circumstances do we ask the Lord to reveal His will, and then commit to act in ways so that will is carried out?
3. How often do we seek to please people instead of seeking to please the Lord in our lives?
Friends, I pray this devotion may speak to your heart in a special way.
Maybe it has shown you that you need to turn your eyes more toward to Lord than others.
Maybe it has served to break the bondage of trying to satisfy others who might have you on the brink of breakdown because you feel like a failure for not being able to please them, even if that could never happen.
Maybe just maybe, these words, spoken to you through me by the Father, have caused you to vow to only seek to please Him from here on out, committing to make him your number one priority.
This last point to consider is my prayer for you. For where you might have multiple expectations when you live to please people, God has only one set of expectations, only one set of standards, and the good news is that He’s always ready to help us meet them.
In other words, He is always helping us to behave in ways that are pleasing to Him so surrendering our will for His becomes a win-win scenario.
Today and every day, I hope you will find peace and joy in this truth as you rest easy and peacefully within the arms of the Father who loves you, the Father who we should seek to please.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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