These days feel different to me, I feel like I am walking into something new. It’s exciting and amazing and at the very same time it’s different and it’s uncomfortable! My courage meter goes up and down as do my emotions as I feel stretched to grow in all the right, but unfamiliar ways. Maybe you are there, too.
I am seeing new all around me. New feels like it is in lingering in the air. The days are getting shorter, the kids are back to school and the leaves are starting to turn. My beloved garden that was sprouting ‘just a few days ago’ is almost finished providing our summer harvest leaving only a few ripe tomatoes to enjoy.
Moments of reflection like these always take me back to the Word of God. Aren’t we glad for the truth that we can uncover in the Bible that encourages us right where we are? Today I am reading in about a woman standing at a well in ancient Israel. Her name is Rebecca and she has walked her present season for some time, going back and forth to the well to provide water for her family. It’s been a good season, but God is getting ready to bring about a shift. It’s time for her season to change!
Genesis 24 tells us Rebekah’s story. While standing at the well one day, she was approached by a stranger to town who was on a mission. Sent by his master, Abraham, he was at the well to find a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac. When he saw Rebekah, he knew that she was the one and asked her if she would be willing to move to another land in order to be Isaac’s bride.
Now that is a big change! Moving to a distant land, becoming a wife with very little notice to a man she had not yet met, I would think she might be a little hesitant and resist the change, but Rebekah said yes. She agreed to go, to leave the old season behind for the great unknown ahead.
Talk about stepping into something new! Her story makes me want to know how did she do it? How can I step into my new in the same courageous way? As we read further in Genesis 24, I see truths from her story that can apply to our lives to help us answer these questions today.
-Expect resistance when making a change.
As Rebekah shared her good news with her family, it was met with excitement, until the very next day when it was time for the journey to begin. Overnight their thoughts changed and they began a conversation suggesting that perhaps it was best, rather than leaving quite so soon, to delay their departure. Perhaps Rebecca should remain with ten more days…or so. (Genesis 24:55)
You can almost hear their conversation. Maybe you have heard the same. ‘We really do know that you called to this. We know that God has a plan for your life but are you sure? Does the new thing really have to start so soon? Can’t it wait just a little bit longer? Maybe ten more days…or so?’ It’s the ‘or so’ that is the clincher. If Rebekah would just settle back into where she had always been, where she was comfortable and life was predictable, if they could just get her to delay just ten more days…or so…, then maybe she would never leave at all.
It’s the ‘or so’ that is the clincher. If Rebekah would just settle back into where she had always been, where she was comfortable and life was predictable, if they could just get her to delay just ten more days…or so…, then maybe she would never leave at all.
-Speak words of courage and faith when making a change
Rebekah was called into the conversation and her family asked if she was willing to go with the servant into the great unknown. She confidently declared three words that changed the course of her life forever. In the face of all that was trying to hold her back, without regard to another ten days or any further delay, Rebekah took a stand and boldly declared,
‘I will go.’ Genesis 24:58b
With those three words she put to rest any doubt that she lacked the determination to do what God had called her to do and set the course for her path forward. She spoke it, believed God, and the journey began!
-Move forward with expectation when making a change.
It was a long journey between Rebekah’s old and her new. I wonder what was on her mind as she rode a camel on the long dusty road. The anticipation must have been building inside of her as she imagined what God might have ahead. When she reached her new homeland, Scripture says that Rebekah looked up and on the horizon she saw a man. Her traveling partner informed her that the one she could see was indeed his master’s son, the one she had traveled to find.
Rebekah looked up. She didn’t hang her head, discouraged by the loss of the past season,
regretting the journey because she didn’t yet know the outcome. Her head was up. Her eyes were on the horizon. She was looking and waiting with hope for what was ahead.
And what she found in her new was greater than she even imagined it could be. You see, Isaac had been looking up, too. Their eyes met and Genesis 24 ends in the most beautiful phrase.
So she became his wife, and he loved her… Genesis 24:67
He deeply loved her. It was more than she saw coming.
Where are you sensing change today? I am right there with you, but more importantly so is your Father. The resistance you are feeling, that is expected and is often evidence that you are on the right road. The words you are speaking? Words that are aligned with God’s plan should be what is quick to come off of your lips. And the place you are going? Can you release your expectations, keeping your head up and your eyes on the horizon?
What’s up ahead might just be more than you saw coming, too.
‘…they left everything and followed Jesus.’ Luke 5:11
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