25/01/2020 - ENVY IN THE HEART

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Do not be envious of evil men, Nor desire to be with them. Proverbs 24:1

Envy is a mixture of desire or disgust for happiness, for the success and possession of others. It finds a nest in almost every heart and always show up as if it were nothing, or just an intuition about the person who succeeded in life. We cannot envy anyone, let alone evil men. What they achieve would never suit us well. After all, because we love God, we do not act like them.

Desiring to be with the winners at any price is bad. Now, the position of God’s children gives us access to the riches of the Most High, and divine promise guarantees perfect and prompt reply every time we pray. However, we are not always well with the Lord, and that makes all the difference. But the wicked do the devil’s will. In order not to leave his clutches, the evil one even shuts one eye to the outbursts of holiness they have.

For Rachel’s sake, Jacob worked seven years. She knew this and longed for the day when she would marry her uncle Isaac´s son. However, she did not take into account her father´s cunning, which deceived her by giving Jacob her sister Leah (Genesis 29: 20-25). Surely she had never forgotten the unpleasant surprise that she had been passed over and had to wait another seven years to belong to her love. Situations for Rachel had always been difficult, as she had to see her husband with her sister.

Over time, Leah began to have children, and Rachel didn’t. The barren condition was not her fault either. If it depended on her, she would have even more children than her sister, but that would only be solved by the Almighty. We don’t know how many prayers Rachel must have said and how many times she convinced herself that her day would come. But it was a mistake, because her pregnancy never confirmed. What could she do then?

Rachel felt that her husband was a true man of God, who had a covenant with the Lord. But it seemed that he did not want to pray to the Most High for Him to open his wife’s womb. Before long, though Jacob’s favorite, Rachel began to envy her sister. Many things do not happen to us, although we see them happening in people’s lives. Envy increased and made her to confront her husband, begging for children (Genesis 30: 1).

She went straight to Jacob and said, Give me children, or I die. When a person reaches this point, they have lost all hope of being answered by the Lord. Why is it that sometimes it is so difficult to count on the Most High to heal us, deliver us from a problem, etc., and even if we pray in faith, the work is never done? Such cases challenge our faith. What was missing for Rachel, or for so many people who were discouraged, only God knows!

Jacob’s anger aroused against Rachel. He then spoke sharply: Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (Genesis 30: 2). Perhaps there had never been such a moment between them. Her decision was to give her servant to her husband, so that he might give her children through her. But God is the only solution to all cases!

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares