Wednesday, May 15, 2013

For a bowl of soup...


29 One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry. 30 Esau said to Jacob, “I’m starved! Give me some of that red stew!” (This is how Esau got his other name, Edom, which means “red.”)
31 “All right,” Jacob replied, “but trade me your rights as the firstborn son.”
32 “Look, I’m dying of starvation!” said Esau. “What good is my birthright to me now?”
33 But Jacob said, “First you must swear that your birthright is mine.” So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal, then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn.
Genesis 25:29-34 (NLT)

You might read this and think...that's flat stupid.  The rights as the firstborn are pretty substantial, especially when your Dad is rich.  Isaac, his Dad, was so blessed of God that the Philistines were jealous of him.   As the firstborn son, Esau received twice the inheritance of the other sons, pretty much...and he gave this up because he was hungry, for a bowl of soup.  I sincerely doubt that the guy was about to die, especially when you think back to the 80s and people on hunger strikes living for a month or 2 without food.  Ghandi, at age 74, made it 21 days.  So yeah, I doubt he was that hungry and yes...that's stupid.

Before you start throwing tomatoes and making "selling your birthright for soup" jokes, you might want to realize that you and I do this every day.  How?

As Christ followers we sell our birthright as an adopted son of God all the time, in a sense, by sacrificing what our God has given us to meet a stupid need that wasn't really a need anyway...

...we throw away our witness because someone made us mad.
...we throw away our marriages because of a moment...
...we throw away our finances because we felt we needed more...
...we sin carelessly just because...
...we turn our backs on GREATNESS for God, because we are so afraid of being hungry for a minute...

Wow...don't give up on God today.  The way we approach Him sometimes, it's almost as we are hoping He'll fail or quit or change His mind or get bored and go bother someone else with His grandiose ideas and plans...and when He does, we throw out comments like "well, I guess God wasn't in that."  Well, He was, but, after a while, He took His plans to those that would follow Him, so you are right, NOW, He's not...

...but hey, you got a bowl of soup in your hand, meeting the tiny need of the moment, and it only cost you an unseen fortune.

17 17 This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow.
18 18  Oh, that you had listened to my commands!  Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river  and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea.
19 19  Your descendants would have been like the sands along the seashore—
    too many to count!  There would have been no need for your destruction,  or for cutting off your family name.”
Isaiah 48:17-19 (NLT)