7/4/2023 0 Comments Speaking in my HeartGenesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
The Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah Abraham’s servant tells his personal story of his experience with God to Laban, Rebekah’s brother. The lectionary only gives us snippets of the story, but reading the entire 24th chapter shows us more miraculous ways in which God works. Sarah had just died and Isaac is heartbroken over his mother’s death. Abraham tries to comfort his son by sending his right-hand man, his chief steward, to find a wife for him. Even though arranged marriages were common, this is an impossible task, and the servant knows it. The servant is a Canaanite, who may not have ever left his region. How could he possibly know where to go and where to find a member of Abraham’s family? And, if he is able to do those things, what if the woman doesn’t want to go with him, a stranger to a foreign land? The servant did pose this last question in verse 39: “What if she won’t follow me? In which Abraham responds, “The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you and make your way successful (v.40). My God will show you the way. That’s an important understanding of this story. The servant did not know “Abraham’s God,” and had no experience or understanding or even a relationship with God. It’s pretty amazing that the servant trusts Abraham’s guidance and prays to a God that he has never met. It’s equally amazing that God meets him right where he is, in his need, and shows him who God is. The servant prays a very specific prayer, and immediately it comes to pass. This blows his mind! He said in verse 45: “Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar.” The phrase “speaking in my heart” really drew my attention, and so I explored how other translations interpret this phrase. The Common English Bible said this: “Before I finished saying this to myself.” The New Living Translation: “Before I had finished praying in my heart” and The Message: “I had barely finished offering this prayer”; both translations understand this to be a prayer. Prayers are the thoughts that we speak in our hearts. Sometimes we verbalize them; sometimes not. We all hold prayers in our hearts that we long to come to pass. However, not all of them will, especially in such a quick and exact way that the servant’s did. Further, is everything that we speak to ourselves in our hearts prayers? Maybe they are just thoughts or desires or fears that we don’t actually want to offer as a prayer to God. So, how do we know what we speak into our hearts are actually prayers, and how do we know what to pray? I mean, how could the servant actually know to be that exact in his thinking/praying? This is what I will dig into more deeply in my sermon on Sunday, July 9th, so if you’d like to hear more, I invite you to join us on Zoom or in-person at Ramona UMC (ramonaumc.org for more info), or you can catch the sermon afterwards on my podcast (In the Sanctuary) or on YouTube. To get you thinking about this scripture beforehand, I invite you to reflect on these questions this week: What is the role of God in this story? Where do you see God acting? Who initiates what is spoken in our hearts? How does the servant and the others respond to God’s actions? Do you have to believe in order for God to work through you? Perhaps reflect on your own “God moment” when God met you right where you were and showed up in a big or mind-blowing way. How did you respond? If you shared your story with others, did they see God’s hand in it?
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