I like love stories. I’m not too big on things like romance novels, but I like a good, honest, love story about real people with all their foibles and quirks. Having been married for 56 years, I’m not much into “and they lived happily ever after.” I figured out that was a fairy tale about three months into it. But a good story about real people with problems to overcome is something that will win my heart. One such is the story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis.
Abraham sought a wife for his son by sending his top servant to his relatives in the city of Nahor. There, through divine “coincidence” the servant found Rebekah and brought her back to wed Isaac. You can read the story in Genesis 24. I love the final verse in that chapter: “And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” [v67 KJV]
Isn’t that a beautiful story? And had it ended there we might add “and they lived happily ever after.” But we’d be wrong.
Initially Rebekah was barren until Isaac sought the LORD for his wife and she conceived. Twins. Then the trouble started. “The children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it be so, why am I thus?’ And she went to inquire of the LORD.” [Gen 25:22 KJV]
I can never get past that verse without chuckling. “Why am I thus?” is one of those verses that so often speaks to our lives, even our spiritual lives. We’ve been adopted into the family of God, made part of the bride of Christ. We’ve been given new life … so why do we still struggle … why isn’t it “happily ever after” instead of “why am I thus?”
I know that our struggles work for us a weight of glory we would not have without them. I know the times in my life when I struggled brought great spiritual growth. And I know that there are still times, even after all these decades when I must run to inquire of the LORD and ask, “Why am I thus? What’s going on God?”
Bless His Holy Name, sometimes He tells me why, sometimes He doesn’t, but either way, He walks with me through it all.
