Praying God's Will

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

PRAYING GOD’S WILL

Gen 25:19-26

19 This is the account of Abraham's son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, "Why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." 24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau.   26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.

NIV

We skipped the clans of Ishmael, as he no longer is part of the story about Jesus, the coming Messiah as Isaac and Rebekah are the two who shall bring forth the next in the line of Jesus. We are being introduced to Esau and Jacob. Of course, in time we will be introduced to the twelve tribes of Israel, from the loins of Jacob. However, what can we learn as a life lesson from this account of their birth? Perhaps the idea of prayer might be seen here, as because Rebekah was barren Isaac prayed on her behalf. Again, we see the LORD answered and opened her womb and she became pregnant. We do wonder because that had to be the plan of God all along, that Jacob would become the father of the tribes or nations of Israel. Yet, God may have been waiting for Isaac to pray for his wife so that His plan would come to pass. We do wonder if this was the providence of God that Rebekah would birth Esau and Jacob, He waited until Isaac prayed. This may be a clue to one of the greatest truths regarding the will of God and how that is played out in the lives of people. Certainly, we are not mere puppets being controlled by strings in the hand of God. Yet, at the same time, He does have a plan for our lives. We are not meant to be born, live pursuing our own pleasures and passion, collecting as much of everything we can, and then just die, ending up in hell, even if we thought we were a good person and would go to heaven. We were born meant to be the person God intended us to be for he knew us before we were formed in our mother’s womb. We were intended to be a part of the kingdom of God, however, God did not hit us over the head with a hammer to get our attention, someone had to pray that we would hear his voice, or He used someone to send us on the right path to our meeting with him. We still have the choice to listen or ignore this new path, Just as Abraham, Isaac and we will see Jacob did. However, they heard from God, and they obeyed the path he sent them on because the world needed Jesus. We may not ever know the results of the path he has sent us on, some of us will have heirs some may not, so we can only consider the path we now walk and our prayers. What is the main focus of the prayers of our hearts? Of course, we know Isaac was interested in having an heir, that is the way of a man’s life. But what do we focus on in our prayers? Do we pray for success, for the blessing of God in what we do, or do we pray that God would have his way with us, that His will would be accomplished in and through our lives? Surely, Isaac was aware of the promise God made to his father, Abraham about the number of his descendants, and they would have to come through himself and Rebekah, yet she was barren. Therefore, God waited until Isaac prayed, and then His will was accomplished. Should we not be praying for God’s will to be accomplished in and through our lives? Although the Spirit had not yet been sent, it could still have been the moving of the Spirit who caused Isaac’s prayer to be perfectly in line with the will of God. Let us always sense the urging of the Spirit in our prayer for God’s will to be done in and through us. Then we saw how long it took for Abraham and Sarah, they were in their old age, so we can also know that we can still be within the plan of God in our lives, accomplishing his will in our old age. No matter how young or old we are, we should always be for praying God’s will to be accomplished in us and through us.