God of Messy

Do you like to cook? Does anyone else have a collection of online recipes they will never make? Me too. I was at my house the other day and my niece Jade was with me. We were looking through memes I had in my phone. Does anyone else have too many memes stored in their phone? Just me? Ok.

There was one I found of a filthy kitchen after cooking a meal (show image). This used to be me. But then I got married and Marci trained me to clean as I go. There is much more order to the process than there was 15 years ago.

Maybe you’re not a cook, but our lives can look like that kitchen. It can be an awful mess, and the mess cab be overwhelming. Nobody’s life is perfectly clean. Life is messy. We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. Life is messy. Relationships are valuable, but they are messy. When life and relationships are chaotic, we get the feeling we are not in control, and there is a tendency to fight for it. We can wonder what God is up to and why he lets things happen the way they do. It opens us up to doubts and fears, that if unchecked, can shake our faith and hope.

Genesis 25 closes with the relationship between two brothers, Esau and Jacob. Isaac was 40 years old when he got married to Rebekah. verse 26 states that he is 60 years old when his sons are born. For 20 years they waited and God answered their prayer with twins. But the story takes a turn. Rebekah can tell there is some sibling rivalry going on even in the womb. She’s wondering what’s going on. This is unusual. So she asks God, and he answers.

Genesis 25:23 NASB95

The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”

So from the outset Isaac and Rebekah know their children are going to have a contentious relationship. Esau’s name sounds like the word red in Hebrew, and Jacob means heel grabber or cheater. These two guys couldn’t be any more different. But God has a plan. Even in division, his plans, his promises will be fulfilled.

Your family dynamics are not what you wish they were. Many of you carry the burden of worrying about the future of your children and their children. You worry about socio-economic status, so you give and give to make things easier. You show up and invest time. You worry about their spiritual state and their lack of interest in finding and attending a church.

God was not absent in the 20 years Isaac and Rebekah waited to become parents. He was not absent in the contentious relationship between two brothers. But in it his sovereign will was worked out. The plan to bring forth the savior of Genesis chapter three did unfold. God is not a cause for the chaos or the contentious relationships, but his purposes do account for them.

God had a purpose for this conflict that would define the relationship between two brothers. God has a purpose for your life as well, and that purpose isn’t arbitrary or random. It fits within the purpose of the grander plan he is executing. You are part of God’s plan, and his plan will come to pass. Trust that even in the midst of hardship, God has a purpose that includes redeeming the hurt.

God’s plans transcend human biases.

We all have biases. If you are alive and you can think, you have biases. You think a certain way, act a certain way, and assume a certain way. Not all biases are bad, but they are biases. In the case of Genesis 25, the biases came in the form of favoritism.

Genesis 25:24–28 NASB95

When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Now, none f you who have more than one child have a favorite, do you? “No, we love all our kids just the same!” No you don’t there’s a bias there that you have to address! But Isaac favors Esau, and Rebekah favors Jacob. I wonder why. It’s easy to have greater affection for someone you connect with easier than another. Do you think that was hard? These kids were already rivals. But then their parents favored one over the other. When this happens, it creates familial tension.

But here’s the thing: Their favoritism toward their respective sons didn’t thwart God’s objectives. God would be successful despite the family dynamics, not because of them. Consider your own family dynamics. You have one child doing very well. They have become a well-rounded and successful individual. You have another child whose life is more of a train wreck. You wonder if he or she will ever find the right path, and you wonder why God allows the situation to drag on for so long. You are almost a spectator watching them run right toward a cliff, and they don’t seem to care or they are not willing to do anything about it. Yet, God knows, God sees this, and God cares about it. His plans transcend the good and bad of our family dynamics, and even if you favor one child over the others, the plan God has for you is a path of confession, repentance, redemption, and restoration. Choose restoration. Choose emotionally healthy relationships.

God redeems flawed choices.

The final part of this chapter shows us more about why Jacob got his name. Remember, one of the ways we can translate his name is “one who grabs the heel.” He was grabbing Esau’s heel as they were being born. But it also means cheater. Cheaters are cunning and deceptive. They manipulate situations to get what they want. Jacob does that very thing.

Genesis 25:29–34 NASB95

When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?” And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

In ancient times, the birthright was a very big deal. If you have multiple kids today, you might choose to leave an inheritance of equal value to all of your children. In Isaac’s time, this was never the case. Ancient societies were centered around the father, and the father would pass on his assets, property, and heritage to the firstborn male of his household. Abraham passed it to Isaac, and Isaac would have naturally passed it to Esau. This was his birthright, a right given to him at birth because of how society was expected to work.

Now, both Jacob and Esau were flawed people. Esau was hasty and impulsive. Jacob was cunning and deceptive. Esau had a natural right to inherit everything Isaac possessed, but we know from verse 23 God has other plans. What we don’t know until we get to the end of the chapter is how God’s plans include flawed human behavior.

Jacob is making soup. Esau comes in so hungry he’s about to die. He could be a little dramatic, but he’s desperate. The only thing on his mind is food. Jacob could simply feed his brother, but he wants something: Esau’s birthright. He wants all that Esau would inherit to come to him. So, the birthright for some stew. In Esau’s desperation, he makes the deal. Jacob becomes the rightful inheritor to Isaac’s legacy.

Yet in these flawed and unjust practices, God’s plans were carried out. It doesn’t make these actions right. God is not advocating that we cheat people out of what is rightfully theirs. But we can trust that even when someone cheats someone else out of something, that God’s plans include redemption of the hurt.

When we read this story, we want to condemn Jacob for selling his brother stew. I want to condemn Esau for making such a hasty decision. The more I read this story, the more this story reads me. I can condemn Jacob, but I see the cheater in me. I can condemn Esau, but I see the hasty and impulsive decision maker in me. But I also see how God has redeemed the shortcut seeking impulsive decision maker and hade him wise and honest, who values integrity above all else. I’ve become a man who trusts that if God wants him to have a thing, he will give me that thing.

Jacob is a cheater, yet it is through him that the perfect man, Christ the savior comes. In a corrupt world filled with corrupt people, God brings forth his son to redeem the world, to offer us a path to healing and wholeness. Wouldn’t you love to be whole? Wouldn’t you love to have healing? Not just physical healing, but emotional, mental, psychological healing?

Wouldn’t you love to know what it means to be whole? To feel complete, lacking in nothing? To be exactly the person God designed you to be? His son, Jesus is the only path to get there. It means we give up ownership of our own lives. We agree with God that Jesus is his son, who lived on this earth without sin, and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, paying the debt we owe, in order to restore the broken pieces to their original design. We turn to Jesus as the only one who can save us from our mess and commit to learning to walk with him. If you don’t have that today, do you want it? Tun to Jesus.

You might be in a relationship with Jesus. The Christian life is learning to hand over realms of our life to Jesus’ control one day at a time. What do you need to hand over today? Is it the worry of outcomes when it comes to your family situation? Do you need to let go of a bias so you can see people the way Jesus wants you to? Do you need to learn how God redeems even your flawed choices? What is he showing you today? How do you need to respond to his invitation?