I was rereading the scripture from Sunday’s sermon on the story of Leah and Rachel in Genesis in preparation to write my blog, my mom was sitting across from me at my dining table, and I read it aloud to her. We found ourselves saying this like ‘Jacob slept with how many people?” “Wouldn’t you be upset if your husband slept with your slave?.”, and “This reminds me of a Jerry Springer episode.”. I pictured the story much like a Telenovela, a classic, juicy, drama-filled tale of two feuding sisters, lust, romance, jealousy, and hatred. To process what I had just read, and also what I listened to in Justin’s sermon, I paraphrased the story to my mom, and she said, “Are you making this up?”, and I said “No, this is actually the bible, and the lineage of Jesus.”.

As I reflected and related this to my own life, I thought about how hard I try to force and manipulate my own ways and plans for my life without recognition that God’s plan is better for me. I want what I want, when I want it. I struggle to rest and allow for time to bring what God intends for me. I have seen this as something black and white before, where I am either following my plan for my life or God’s plan, but I am not sharp or wise enough to directly and solely follow either. It would take some serious and calculated devotion to either self or God to follow those kinds of rules. My sin is so great that I don’t even always recognize when or how I have sinned. While my heart has been changed God dwells there, I will never adequately and perfectly follow Him the way that Jesus did, but I will also continue to deny myself in continual repentance.

God used sinful, wretched, sick-hearted people, the lowly and lesser, people just Leah, Rachel, Jacob, and like us, to bring His son to the Earth, the ultimate atonement. I often laugh in amazement at the mysterious and backward ways that God works. The way that His ultimate plan and love for us is still seen to fruition and never foiled, although we make horrendous choices and throw every possible sinful wrench in the way, His Grace is plentiful, abounding, and unconditional, and comes up like fresh, fragrant flowers enduring the conditions of unhealthy and rough soil.

~Carly Haynes