"Mine...Mine...ALL MINE."

"When Jacob had been with him for a month, Laban said, 'Just because you're my nephew, you shouldn't work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What's a fair wage?'

Now Laban had two daughters; Leah was the older and Rachel the younger. Leah had nice eyes, but Rachel was stunningly beautiful. And it was Rachel that Jacob loved.

So Jacob answered, 'I will work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.'

'It is far better,' said Laban, 'that I give her to you than marry her to some outsider. Yes. Stay here with me.'

So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel. But it only seemed like a few days, he loved her so much.

Then Jacob said to Laban, 'Give me my wife; I've completed what we agreed I'd do. I'm ready to consummate my marriage.' Laban invited everyone around and threw a big feast. At evening, though, he got his daughter Leah and brought her to the marriage bed, and Jacob slept with her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.)

Morning came: There was Leah in the marriage bed!

Jacob confronted Laban, 'What have you done to me? Didn't I work all this time for the hand of Rachel? Why did you cheat me?'

'We don't do it that way in our country,' said Laban. 'We don't marry off the younger daughter before the older. Enjoy your week of honeymoon, and then we'll give you the other one also. But it will cost you another seven years of work.'

Jacob agreed. When he'd completed the honeymoon week, Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. (Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid.) Jacob then slept with her. And he loved Rachel more than Leah. He worked for Laban another seven years."---Genesis 29:15-30 (Message)

"We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task. In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a 'getaway.' We cannot love and be limited."---Alfred Adler





The scriptures above? I call those my "relationship gut check verses". The truth (John 8:32) is that sometimes I have moments when I feel like Leah...other times when I feel like Rachel. What I mean is that there are days (or relationships) where I have found myself falling under Leah's physical description/testimony...much more than I ever have Rachel's (I'm working on that, though) and when I am in limbo, I will go to this story for insight.

Since, in times past, I have gravitated more to Leah, let's take a moment to look at how Leah was described:

According to the NKJV of Genesis 29:17, "Leah's eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance."

Delicate: fragile; easily damaged; frail; distinguishing subtle differences.

The Amplified: "Leah's eyes were weakand dull looking, but Rachel was beautiful and attractive."

Weak: not strong; liable to yield, break, or collapse under pressure or strain.

Dull: causing boredom; tedious; uninteresting; not lively or spirited; listless; not bright, intense, or clear; dim.

The Contemporary English Version: "Leah was older than Rachel, but her eyes didn't sparkle, while Rachel was beautiful and had a good figure."

Sparkle: to be brilliant, lively, or vivacious.

If we pause here for just a second, this leads me to believe that there was something, uh, "perceptively different" about Leah way before the whole Jacob drama (hmm, perhaps that's why her father thought he had to "barter" and "trick" a man into marrying her---bookmark that).

Now, the Word says that Rachel as beautiful. First, let me say that I've lived long enough on this earth to understand what it means when people say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so a part of me thinks "beautiful to whom?", but before we get really deep into today's message, let me just say to all of the ladies reading this that while I am a firm believer that physical beauty is a gift like anything else, God makes no junk. We are all just as fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139:14) made as the next gal. Personally, I think that is a big part of the reason why God despises envy and jealousy so much (Proverbs 14:30, James 3:16); it implies that he put more thought into one child than another. That's simply not true.

However, I do believe there was a reason why the Word says that Leah was one way and Rachel was another. Just last night, I was reading an article on Will and Jada Smith. There was something Will said that I really appreciated. He and his wife were talking about how for a long time Jada did not agree with this "relationship pyramid". His is him, then his wife and then the kids. For years, hers was the kids, then him and then her. His rationale? When a plane is going down, they advise that you put the mask on your face first...that you can't "save" someone until you are OK.

It took me a long time to come to that same resolve, but in this season (Ecclesiastes 3:1), I couldn't agree more. Perhaps the scripture that I have quoted more than any other this year is that you should love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:33) This is not a suggestion; it's a commandment. As a matter of fact, according to Matthew 22:40 (Message), "...everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (The other being love the Lord will all your mind, soul and strength.)

Because we serve a God who does things decently and in order (I Corinthians 14:40), I can't help but wonder how many people have not yet been "joined together" (Matthew 19:6) with the mate that God has in mind for them all because they don't love themselves---yet. When I read about Leah and Rachel, I can't help but wonder how much of the differentiation was about how they looked on the outside vs. how they felt about themselves on the inside. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, right? When someone looked into Leah's eyes, was it her corneas that lacked sparkle or was it her soul that was weak...easily damaged...uninteresting? If it was the latter, what chance did she really have of a healthy man being drawn to that? (Hmm...)

There is a woman that I know who, while she is not an atypical beauty (personally I find that to be beautiful), it's not how she looks that makes her unappealing. It's how self-deprecating that she is. She is always talking about how big she is, how "nappy" her hair is, how no man wants her. Shoot, I'm a heterosexual woman and it turns me off, so I can only guess how a man would feel listening to that all of the time! Ladies, Rachel was beautiful way before Jacob ever came onto the scene. It was a part of what she was when he met her. Don't be waitin' on some man to define your worth. It's unattractive, counterproductive...and it's also a form of idolatry. (Exodus 20:3)

Idolatry: the worship of idols, images, or anything which is not God; excessive attachment or veneration for anything; respect or love which borders on adoration.

God had to "chasten" (Hebrews 12:6) me late last year when it came to me making my desires a god...how he wasn't going to give me anything that would cause me to worship it more than him...even things he created like marriage and children. God will never support something that will cause us to worship it more than him. If you believe otherwise, you are exchanging God's truth for your lie. (Romans 1:25) It's a hard pill to swallow that God is withholding some "good" things from us because for us, at this stage, it simply wouldn't be good.

Back to Leah and Rachel. Every time I read this story, I get something new out of it (which is why I can't understand how people can get bored with the Bible). This time when I read it, I thought about something that I never really had before...at least not in this way. You know, I never really understood how Jacob could love a woman so much and not know that he wasn't sleeping with her. But, it's a whole 'nother discussion how we try and apply (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) the Bible to our modern-day lives without taking the times and cultures into account (we'll have to save that for another devotional message). Either way, what was clear is that even after sleeping with Leah, he wasn't satisfied. EVEN AFTER HAVING SEX WITH LEAH HE WASN'T SATISFIED.

The Amplified Version of Proverbs 5:15 says, "Drink waters out of your own cistern [of a pure marriage relationship], and fresh running waters out of your own well." Has anyone ever read the following verse? "Should your offspring be dispersed abroad as water brooks in the streets?" Again, we'll have to save that for another time...but let me just say that "my cup runneth over" with young women who are and have offspring "running" all over the place, all because they (and/or their parents) didn't value the beauty of covenant intimacy.

However, that wasn't really my point in bringing Proverbs 5:15 up. The real point was that Leah was Jacob's wife and yet because she was not what he wanted...WHAT HE WORKED FOR...while he got the physical privilege that comes with marriage with Leah, still, he wasn't fulfilled. Because he was tricked into getting something he never wanted in the first place, it didn't gratify him. It only angered him.

Today, I was talking to a "love cousin/nephew" about this little girl who is stalking him (no joke). Yesterday, his mother told me that there was a girl that staked her claim on Joshua (yeah, Baba, that would be "your Joshua") on him by saying in an accent that sounded like a mix of German and French, "You're mine...mine...all mine!" She even went so far as to do a class assignment for him while he was away from his desk. As his mother was relaying the story, I was dying laughing, but when I really took that time to think about it, I thought, "How sad." Unfortunately, I can relate to that poor 7^th grader. I remember being about that age and giving a card to a guy. The next weekend, he gave me a torn up version of it in front of all of his friends. I spent many years reflecting on how cruel that guy was, but it wasn't until this weekend that I wondered how the "receiver" feels about such "games". As someone on the receiving end, I decided to ask Joshua how it made him feel.

"So Joshua, what's up with this girl who likes you."

"She just likes me."

"And you don't like her? Why not?"

"I just don't." (And ladies, sometimes it's just that simple!)

"How does she make you feel?"

"Well, she sits in front of me. She makes me feel weird."

"Like uncomfortable?"

"Not uncomfortable...just awkward."

"And how about when she did your classwork?"

"Now that creeped me out."

He also went into how they were both too young to be even thinking about being "mine, mine...all mine" (good for him), but for the grown folks, I wanted you to catch two things: One, he didn't like her, and her pushing her feelings on him didn't convince him to change his mind. It only made him feel awkward:

Awkward: requiring caution; somewhat hazardous; dangerous; hard to deal with; difficult; requiring skill, tact, or the like; embarrassing or inconvenient.

The other thing, ladies? Doing things for him that he could do for himself...going above and beyond to win his affections? In the wise words of a 7^th grader, that did nothing other than CREEP HIM OUT!

Last year, God also revealed to me that I have a great tendency to emasculate (to deprive of strength or vigor; weaken) men with my "loving". Proverbs 18:22 says that a man who finds a wife finds a good thing. There's TONS of ways to "find" something (to come upon by chance; to locate, attain, or obtain by search or effort; to recover; to gain or regain the use of; to feel or perceive), but my greater point is that this verse implies that a woman is a "wife" when a man finds her. Ladies, Ephesians 5:33 says that a wife is to respect her husband. I personally think that respecting men is something we should be in the habit of doing way before our wedding day...it's a part of what makes a woman a wife, after all.

As a single-woman-in-training, the definition of "respect" should be: esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability; the condition of being esteemed or honored.

As a married woman, the definition of "respect" should be: deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment; the condition of being esteemed or honored.

As a single woman, a part of "respecting" the man is not seducing him, wooing him, pursuing him in a way that deprives him of his strength or vigor. We shouldn't do anything that weakens (to reduce in quality, strength, or spirit) him. I have a couple of single male friends and it amazes me how women do back flips for them. It's almost as if these ladies have made it their life mission to serve them...before they even ask, the need is met...whether they "need" it or not. Jump? How high? Swim? How far? From the outside looking in, I can see how that would "creep a man out". The truth is that a man has no problem working for what he wants. He was wired that way. (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:19-20) And ladies, God doesn't need our help (just our obedience) in bringing us to the man that he has in mind for us. (Genesis 2:21-25) Let Leah and this poor 7^th grade girl be a reminder that giving them your all means nothing if they didn't really want it in the first place...and them not wanting it doesn't make them the bad guy. After all, the only one God instructed you to serve was him. If anything, the reality check (Ecclesiastes 7:18---Message) via a man's response, or lack thereof, is to get you back focused on that point:

"For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"---Luke 4:8 (NKJV)

Oh, I can only imagine how Leah must've felt after giving her body to someone only to have him say to her father, "'What have you done to me? Didn't I workall this time for the hand of Rachel? Why did you cheat me?'" Remember what I said about God loving all of his children? (Acts 10:34) I'm sure that's a part of the reason why she was fruitful while, for a season, Rachel was barren. (Genesis 29:31) God certainly didn't like that one was more favored than the other. But, when I think about my life as a single woman and the lives of these two wives, I promise you the "courtship" I would rather have would be that of Rachel...or if I could modernize it, my friend Phonethip.

This past Friday, one of my girlfriends was proposed to in a way that was weeks, and on some levels, years in the making. Her fiance', Jonathan, had her picked up from work in a blue 1959 jaguar filled with chocolate-covered strawberries and tissues (he knew she would need them). He had the chauffeur take her to a local boutique where a dress and a pair of pumps were waiting wrapped in boxes with custom-designed wrapping paper. Each destination included a card. He even had one of her stops be her favorite cupcake shop. Finally, she was taken to a mansion where he awaited her in a tux with flowers. There was even a dinner table set for two...and (get this) the table setting matched her attire. It was there that he proposed with a gorgeous ring...one that he picked out all by himself...and she loved...because he knew her taste that well.

HE KNEW WHAT HE WANTED AND HE WORKED FOR IT.

I saw my girlfriend today. I must admit that there always seemed to be this invisible wall up that only those closest to her could see. It was down today and I believe it was because she could trust being that vulnerable now. He earned her heart at that level. (Another lesson that we could stand to learn, ladies.) I sensed how secure she was in believing that he really loved her because he showed it. I can't help but believe that Rachel probably felt very similar to Phonethip. With Jacob, it wasn't about just having a wife or having sex...it was about having the wife that he wanted and he was going to work himself to the bone, if need be, to have her. Nothing, not even the wiles of another woman, would be able to stand in his way.

I believe that a lot of women right now are either in unstable marriages or they feel unstable in them and it's all because they took on the spirit of Leah rather than Rachel. Either they didn't think very much of themselves before uniting to their partner or because he did very little work on the front end, they question their worth to him now that the vows have been said. If you fall into one of these categories, I don't have the answer to that just yet, although I did tease one of my happily married friends today about preaching a sermon, entitled "Now What?" for people who settled/compromised and know that they did. What I can share is that if you are "Leah", remember that God loved her, too. The things that hurt you hurt him. (I Peter 5:7) There are many a woman in the Bible who had miraculous things happen in their lives when they went to God with their brokenness. (I Samuel 1 is a good place to start as a reference.) Don't let your shame, embarrassment, fear, weariness...whatever, keep you from running to your Father. He "gets it"...better than we often give him credit for.

Oh, but for those of us who are still single, as my mother says, "Discernment prevents experience from being your teacher." The stories in the Bible aren't simply there for our amusement. They are there to help us better discern (Ecclesiastes 8:5) what to do...and what not to do. A wife is a good thing. Ladies, we all deserve a man who will see us, off top, as that. A man who will say, "I love her so much, I will work as hard as I have to, to have her. And don't throw a substitute in the way to try and distract me, either. No other woman can fill the void that not having her would leave."

And guys, you deserve a woman who respects the man you are enough to not "creep you out" with her tactics; who doesn't have to profess that you are "Mine...mine...ALL MINE" because you both will know it without her having to do your homework...pay your bills...run your errands...compromise her values just to get your attention.

Let Jacob, Leah and Rachel be a word of wisdom (and caution) to us all.

There are some things you can do to get a man...but he and he alone decides how (and if) he wants to be kept.

How can you tell the difference? Watch and see if he puts in the work!

©Shellie R. Warren/2008