Moved by his Prayer

Genesis 25:19-34
The Birth and Youth of Esau and Jacob

Isaac and Rebekah are now twenty years into their marriage, and they have not produced any children. We don’t know if they want children or if they are just trying to live into their familial and societal expectations. Abraham is supposed to be the father of a nation, so he is depending on Isaac to help build up that nation. Yet, Isaac and Rebekah find they are barren. They have spent the first twenty years of their marriage unable to produce, create, or grow.

In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Verse 21 says that “Isaac prayed to the Lord,” and “the Lord granted his prayer” (v.21). The word “granted” doesn’t sit well with me. It conjures the image of a fairy godmother granting wishes. The Common English Bible resonated with me more when it said, “The Lord was moved by his prayer.” The New Living Translation and The Message both said that the Lord simply answered his prayer. The emphasis was put more on Isaac’s action instead of the Lord’s. Isaac “prayed hard” (MSG) and he “pleaded with the Lord” (NLT). His intensity and earnestness were what moved the Lord to act.

The passage doesn’t say how long Isaac prayed. I wonder if it was his perseverance that moved the Lord. Was he praying for twenty years? Or, did he wait in frustration for twenty years, and then decide to pray? Did he finally arrive to the point where he was like, “There’s nothing I can do but pray,” when in fact, he should have been praying from the very beginning. His surrender was what moved the Lord.  

At any rate, the Lord was moved by Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant. However, it was a difficult pregnancy, which moved Rebekah to ask the Lord, “Why is this happening to me?” (NLT, v.22). Often we think that when our prayers are answered, everything is going to turn out ok. Isaac’s answered prayer actually created a situation where Rebekah needed to reach out to God too.

The Lord also answered Rebekah and told her that she had two nations in her womb, which she probably thought God was crazy because she had no idea at the time that she was pregnant with twins. It wasn’t until she “reached the end of her pregnancy that she discovered that she had twins” (v.24). God told her the truth, but she couldn’t understand it at the time. I’m not so sure she was happy about the answer because the fighting didn’t stop when the pregnancy ended. The rivalry continued until adulthood, and Esau and Jacob did not reconcile until after a twenty-year absence.

The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, which caused strife and difficulty for Rebekah. The Lord answered Rebekah’s prayer, which did not comfort her. The Lord gave her answers, but knowing the answer did not relieve her suffering. The Lord will answer our prayers, but answered prayers aren’t a guarantee that everything is going to be ok in life. The Lord answers our prayers as a way to reach out to us to assure us that we are in relationship with the Lord.

Barrenness, difficulties, and suffering are part of our life journey. No one escapes them. However, we don’t have to face them alone. We can go to the Lord to ask our questions, plead, and pray hard, and the Lord will be moved to respond to our pain. We may not get the answers we want, and we may not always be comforted by the tough facts, but we have God to walk with us through the difficulties.
 
Reflection questions to ponder or explore in a journal:
When have you pleaded or prayed hard to God? Was God moved to answer your prayer?
Have you ever received an answer that you were not happy with the outcome? How did you handle it?
Do you take your questions to God? What do you want to ask God right now? Go ahead, God is listening.