Doug Van Pelt

The church for all time

Am listening to a great podcast by Kemper Crabb (available at phantomtollbooth.org), which is wildly great stuff. He's saying some things that are so inline with the core fundamentals of biblical Christianity. Fans of Don Miller will surely resonate with this stuff. I love it.

Genesis 29 contains a wild story. Jacob continues on his journey until he gets to the land of his family. There he meets some of the family and falls in love with Rachel. He stays for a month and Laban asks him to come up with a figure or wage for his work. He promised to work for Laban for seven years in exchange for his daughter Rachel to be his wife. He agreed, so Jacob worked for him for seven years. After the time was completed, he asked for his "wage." Laban threw a big feast and when evening came he sent his daughter Leah to Jacob instead of Rachel.

Leah had "weak eyes" and was not as beautiful as Rachel, it seems. I'm not sure what "weak eyes" means. Perhaps it was a "lazy eye" or a "wandering eye" or a "drooping" eye. Let's just say she was ugly, can we? How Jacob got tricked into "laying with" Leah instead of Rachel is beyond me. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe Leah looked similar to Rachel and it was hard to tell them apart in the dim light of nightfall. Maybe she wore a veil. Either way, Jacob found out in the morning and demanded a refund.

Laban pulled the "customs" card and said, "That's how we roll here -- we marry the older one first." He agreed to give him Rachel as another wife after the "bridal week" was over ... in exchange for another seven years' worth of work. I assume the "bridal week" was only seven days, and then he had his true love -- Rachel. God however, had favor for ugly Leah (yeah, I'm picking on her, but let me use this "creative license") and made her womb fruitful. She gave birth to four sons. Rachel didn't have any.

It's kinda cool that God showed favor to the ugly girl. It's great that God likes us ugly people -- cuz we're all ugly, or at least will be. Even if we are blessed enough to be considered one of the "beautiful people" or in-crowd, some day we will stretch, wrinkle, or break into ugliness. So, none of us can really escape the "ugly" curse. It's all very superficial, but it affects some of us deeply and in a very hurtful way. When we feel discarded or unwanted, that really feels bad. God, I think, has special love and consideration for the outcast. I think His heart really goes out to the "ugly" people.

I've shared this before, and I apologize for being like the ugly, old, wrinkled man that repeats his stories over and over again, but maybe not everyone readin this heard this one...

One time I was having a "conversation" with God. The subject was girls and my taste for thin ones over fat ones. Then God told me (of course, I'll say "I believe" He told me) the following words, which stopped me in my tracks:

"I'm fat. Does that mean you don't love Me?"

Wow. I remember truly feeling the pain and guilt of being so shallow and feeling like I'd truly cut to the heart of the Creator of all things. Whether it's a theological fact (His weight or appearance) doesn't really mean anything to me (I kinda doubt that part). The point is that all of His creation -- all people -- are important and worthy of love.

God took special favor towards Leah. That is cool.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at January 30, 2007 01:31 PM