March 15, 2012 | In: From Steve

I Hate Rejection! Leah in Genesis 29

When is the last time you felt rejected?  How did you respond? … How are we to heal from rejection?

Genesis 29:17 says: Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. (NIV)  This is a classic contrast of sisters.  Leah’s “weak eyes” didn’t mean she had thick glasses and was legally blind.  In contrast to Rachel, Leah was not good looking.

Rachel is described as “lovely of face and figure.”  Rachel seemed to have it all.  Plus we get a hint of her lively personality a few verses later when she says to Jacob, “Give me children or I’ll die!”

1. The world evaluates by externals.

One psychology study found that we consistently judge beautiful people to be “more interesting, kind, intelligent, sociable, and exciting” than less attractive people.  Teachers considered less attractive children more likely to be troublemakers.  Higher salary levels and greater advancement was correlated more often with attractiveness for men and women of all ages and in all fields.

We also learn that quiet personalities receive less attention and are less popular than extroverted personalities.  Introverts sense their personality is less valued.

So from early on we experience rejection based on our appearance and personality.  Never mind that God created diversity in appearance and personality!  We accept and reject based on outward standards.

 What standards do you use to accept or reject people? appearance? personality? social status? money they have? how successful they are?

The key question is: Are these God’s standards??  God values character, compassion, and sacrifice.

In Genesis 29:25-30 Jacob wakes up from his wedding night and discovers that his father-in-law switched brides.  He is now married to Rachel’s older sister Leah.  Imagine being Leah: your father is afraid he won’t be able to marry you off, so he tricks an unwilling husband into marry you.  Plus, your beautiful sister is there every day.

A major problem in the household is that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.  Jacob was more attracted to Rachel based on appearance and personality.  Jacob had big plans to fulfill God’s promise of an heir to God’s blessings through Rachel.  Jacob is trying to control God’s promises, so he rejects Leah.

Leah was a pawn in a sick family system.  She bore the brunt of their sin by being only partially loved.  This partiality set up an atmosphere of deception, competition, and manipulation (last week).

   2. Conditional love rejects.  Incomplete love masquerades as true love.

Every family has generational weaknesses—certain attitudes and character struggles that are passed along from generation to generation.  Healing a family pattern usually takes more than one generation.

Dave Simmons tells about his childhood.  His military father was extremely demanding, rarely saying a kind word, and constantly pushing him with harsh criticism to do better.  When Dave was a little boy, his dad gave him a bicycle, unassembled, and told him to put it together.  After Dave struggled to the point of tears, his father said: “I knew you couldn’t do it.”  Then he assembled it for him.

When Dave played sports in high school, his father was unrelenting in his criticisms.  After every game his dad would go over every mistake Dave made.  “Most boys got butterflies in the stomach before the game; I got them afterwards.  Facing my father was more stressful than facing any opposing team.”  Dave hated his father and his father’s harshness.

Dave played sports in college as far away from home as he could.  After college, he was a 2^nd round draft pick for a professional team.  “Excited, I telephoned my father to tell him the good news.  Dad said, ‘How does it feel to be second?’ ”  I would want to avoid this father, would you?

But Dave met Jesus Christ and God’s love drew him back to his father.  During visits home Dave listened with interest to what his father had to say.  He learned for the first time about his grandfather—a tough lumberjack known for his violent temper.  Once his grandfather destroyed a pickup truck with a sledgehammer because it wouldn’t start, and he often beat Dave’s father.  Dave recalls, “Knowing about my father’s upbringing made me more sympathetic and helped me see that, under the circumstances, my father might have been much worse.  When dad died, I can honestly say we were friends.”

What family patterns affect you?  What rejections haunt you?  How do you need God’s healing?

In Genesis 29:31-35 it doesn’t escape God’s notice when His people are unloved and rejected.  Jacob’s favoritism and partial love were made Leah felt like a reject, something to be thrown in the trash.  But Leah was unloved because of Jacob’s weaknesses, not hers.  Sometimes we will be rejected and it has nothing to do with us.  After all, Jesus was rejected too!

God doesn’t abandon Leah.  He opens her womb, while making Rachel barren.  God blesses Leah by providing children to enrich her life.  Leah will experience love as a parent since she is rejected as a wife.  God also frustrates Jacob and Rachel’s self-serving plan.  In God’s plan, Leah will fulfill the role of mother-heir of the promises God gave to Abraham and Isaac.

Leah will become mother to 6 of 13 tribes of Israel.  When Leah dies, she will be buried next to Jacob with Abraham-Sarah and Isaac-Rebekah (49:31).  In contrast, Rachel will be buried alone on the way to Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19).

The names of Leah’s 4 sons are a picture of her faith journey toward God:

                 Reuben means “see, a son.” Now Jacob will see her worth as the mother of his first born son.

                 When that doesn’t work, Simeon is born.  His name means “hears me.”  Leah sees that God hears her.  Simeon is her hope to convince Jacob to listen to God and love her.

 Her third son Levi means “attached.”  Leah hopes now that three sons will attach Jacob’s attention to her.  This son will one day be the tribe that serves as the priests or intercessors to God for the whole nation Israel.  This is also part of her inheritance of God’s promises.

 With the fourth son Judah, there is a shift in Leah’s response.  Up until now her focus has been on winning Jacob’s love by bearing him sons.  Now she says, “This time I will praise the Lord.”  Judah’s name meant “praise.”  Leah’s faith break-through was coming to recognize that to be loved and led by God is a far greater thing than to be loved by any man.  While Jacob’s affection was still something she desired, now she was content with the abundant love of God.

Judah is the most significant of the twelve sons because he is the tribe from which the Messiah will come.  God’s spiritual promise to Abraham is fulfilled through Jesus of the tribe of Judah.  Leah will be the great, great, etc. grandmother to Jesus.  God was abundantly faithful to Leah!

            3. God draws the rejected to depend on Him.  In the end, it’s only God’s opinion of us that really counts! 

A young man named Bryan was driving home in his beat-up car on a deserted road as darkness fell.  Bryan had no job and the winter chill was made worse by a light snow falling.  Bryan noticed an elderly lady stopped on the side of the road.  He pulled over in front of her Mercedes.  Even though Bryan smiled, she was worried.  No one had stopped to help for over an hour.  This guy didn’t look safe; he looked poor and hungry.

Bryan could see she was frightened, so he said, “I am Bryan and I am here to help you ma’am.  Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm?”  As Bryan changed her flat tire, the elderly woman rolled down the window and began talking to him.  She couldn’t thank him enough and asked him how much she owed him.  Bryan never thought twice about the money; this was helping someone in need.  He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give assistance.  Then Bryan added “and think of me.”  Bryan felt good as he headed home.

Down the road the elderly lady stopped at a small, run-down cafe.  The waitress had a sweet smile even though she looked tired.  She also noticed the waitress was very pregnant.  The lady wondered how someone with so little could be so cheerful.  Then she remembered Bryan.  After the elderly lady finished her meal, she paid with a $100 bill.  As the waitress went to get change, the lady slipped out the door.

When the waitress returned, she noticed something written on a napkin.  It said, “You don’t owe me anything, I have been there too.  Somebody recently helped ME the way I am helping you.  If you really want to pay me back, don’t let this chain of love end with you.”

That night when the waitress got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written.  How could the lady have known how much she and her husband needed it?  With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard.  She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a gentle kiss and whispered soft and low: “Everything is gonna be alright.  I love you, Bryan.”

God can erase our rejections.  God will provide for our physical and emotional needs.  How has God sustained you during rejection?  How has God given you a new identity when you felt like a reject?  God’s calling for us is to be His hands and feet to carry His healing to those rejected around us.  Pass it on!