Beckoned Beauty–S3E3 Community; God’s plan for humanity and a Mother’s Love
Hello and welcome to Two Hearts True Healing! It is so good to be with you! I have been looking forward to this time with you in the Lord. You know how before a wedding everyone dolls up? They get fancy hairstyles and makeup. New clothes are picked out with perfect colors and matching shoes. The men don suits and ties and shiny black shoes. Great care is taken to accompany the bride and prepare her for the “first look” and the walk down the aisle with her father. There is something so breathtaking in the virgin beauty of the bride and her train of attendants. All the exteriors are beautiful but the thing that shines the most is her interior beauty. It radiates like the sun and shapes the whole day. This day is a reflection of her heart and marks a milestone in her life with the groom. And what does he do? Receive her and cherish her. He relishes in her beauty and serves her. Together they are celebrated and honored and sent forth in love to their new beginning. It marks a change in their relationship and begets an unbreakable bond that is not severed until death do they part through thick and thin. Why do I start with this? One, I just was at a wedding so it is fresh in my mind but also this pertains to our episode today. This is Season three Episode three; Beckoned Beauty.
Who is the character we are following today? Rebecca. She has a fascinating story that has multiple levels that on the surface might be missed. Ready to dive in? This story is taken from Genesis 24 and Genesis 27. It begins from the same place we started with Abraham, a promise. In fact we are with Abraham again and this story begins in the promise he was given and how this blessing would be fulfilled in Isaac. Remember? Your descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky and the sands of the seashore. This time it has a little bit of a different twist. The Lord the God of Heaven, who took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you and you shall take a wife for my son there… Abraham has entrusted his servant with the important mission of finding a wife for his son. He makes his servant swear that he will not allow mixed blood with the local women but from Abraham’s kindred and from his house. This must have something to do with people having faith in God. Remember with Noah how the world was polluted because the men took whatever beauty they could find and that pleased them versus trying to find worthy women? It was a love driven by lust and not devotion. Intermarriage is what was the downfall because the local women did not have morals and had many false gods. They turned the hearts of their husbands away from the Lord.
Abraham is adamant that faith and devotion must be the driving factor. God promised great things would happen through faith. There is another beautiful thing mentioned that we would do well to remember in our daily lives as we try to follow the will of God: he will send his angel before you. How many times do we fear that we will not hear? How many times have we been afraid of missing the word and messing up? We will have little signposts. Our guardian angels give us the little promptings we need. Also if the plan is hinged on sharing our calling with others we can rest assured that God will send angels ahead of us to pave the way for the conversation. We will be aided and helped, given grace to fulfill the little yes in front of us. So next time you are tempted to doubt, ask God to send angels to assist you and trust that you will receive help from them. They are always happy to serve us and to bring God to us and to bring our requests to God and to other people.
Anyways, Abraham’s servant goes back to Abraham’s people with a little trepidation that the woman will not follow and that he won’t be able to find her. What does he do? He prays that the first woman to come to the well for water and offers him and his camels a drink would be the one that he should take back to Isaac. Pause. That seems like a pretty impossible thing, doesn’t it? But it says before he had he finished his prayer, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar upon her shoulder. Let’s take a little pause here. Why was it that she of all people was the first to come? Many people could have come that weren’t the chosen ones. Remember, the angel was sent ahead and gave a little inspiration that she should leave now to go to the well. She did. She obeyed the little prompting in her heart. Women are good listeners. They receive all the messages given to them and have a way of holding these things in their hearts. We are receptive to little beckonings and intuitive about which ways to take. Men are a little more clueless and need the complementarity of an intuitive heart. Women bring the little things to their attention. They are the heart of relationships that inform the intellect or mind of the man to make the proper choice. He needs to see all the details before being able to choose the proper path.
So Abraham’s servant sees her and is astounded by her radiant beauty. The maiden was very fair to look upon, a virgin whom no man had known. She went down to the spring, and filled her jar, and came up. There is another detail here in which the servant was looking for that is often overlooked in the first reading but perhaps may be picked up on the second. That is the heart of the woman. All the little intuitions have to have a purpose. Service. Does she have a heart of gold and devotion or is it only vain beauty? Is she looking to fulfill the needs of others before her own? Or is she using these intuitions for selfish gain? Hmm. In other words, what is her beauty? Empty and shallow or is it a beauty that comes from a thoughtful and good heart? Verse 17 tells us the answer. Then the servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” She said, “Drink my lord,” and she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw for your camels also, until they have done drinking.”
That is a lot. Hardly expected for a woman to do for a stranger. She is both open and kind. Listening to that interior voice that says ‘help.’ She goes above and beyond the call of duty. She has that heart of service that makes her interior beauty shine and makes the exterior truly beautiful. She gets his water first before filling the jar for her family’s need. The servant quickly rewards her with expensive gold jewelry and says “Tell me whose daughter you are?” “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah whom she boar to Nahor.” Also one further test to see if she has hospitality, “Do you have room for my party and for my camels? Straw and provisions?” “Yes!” And astounded, she runs back to her mother’s house and tells of the whole affair. Her brother, Laban, sees the expensive jewelry and hears her story and prepares the place for their guests. We can tell in a later story that the riches are what is driving his heart. How to get rich quickly and have worldly gain. He runs to the spring to see this man and find his errand. “Come in Oh blessed of the Lord…!” The servant is praising the Lord for guiding him to the kinsman of his master and is bent upon completing the errand he is sent on.
He and those with him are welcomed into the house with great fuss and fanfare and he doesn’t lose his mind in the process. He says “Let me tell you my errand,” even before they eat. He relates the whole tale from the beginning about his master and the promise of the Lord. You can imagine the heart of Rebekah. She is astounded and filled with a holy curiosity and desire. We know she is looking for fulfillment and has a deep trust in the provision of the Lord. She wants to follow this beckoning heart of hers and is astounded that the God of this “master” Abraham is faithful. That He looks out for His own. She must have known of the faith of her relative and is somehow interiorly called to follow this God too. Verse 48 The servant says at the end of the whole story, Then I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to take the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. Now then if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not tell me that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.”
Then Laban and Bethuel answered, “The thing comes from the Lord; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before you, take her and and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has spoken.” When Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord. Then he gifts the family with many costly things, thanking the Lord for guiding him and that his errand will be fulfilled. They feast and spend the night and we see the heart of the servant once again to fulfill God’s plan and his master’s and asks “let us go to fulfill this errand. ” Laban and Rebekah’s mother says, “Let it be ten days and then she can go.” But the servant is adamant. “Do not delay me. Since the Lord has prospered my way; let me go that I may go to my master.” They said, “We will call the maiden, and ask her.” And they called Rebekah, and said to her, “ Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will go.” Again we see the remarkable heart of trust that Rebekah has. She is so drawn to follow that she isn’t thinking of the thousands of details that ensue with this whole affair. She just wants to have a heart of faith. She isn’t thinking of exteriors. What if she doesn’t like him? What if she gets homesick? What if we have troubles on the way? No. Not at all. They pack and leave for scripture says, Then Rebekah and her maids arose, and rode upon the camels and followed the man; thus the servant took Rebekah and went his way.
That was a quick trusting response. One worth emulating. We get up and go with whatever God puts in our heart with a trust that he will work out all the details. He will show us when we ask and remain faithful to us when we follow and woos us when we don’t. Isaac is wondering how the Lord will fulfill His promise. In the evening on the appointed day that his heart tells him, Isaac goes also into the field to meditate and pray. He is curious and seeking the Lord. And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes and when she saw Isaac, she alighted from the camel, and said to the servant, “Who is the man yonder, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. Pause. All this is fancy jargon for saying, love at first sight! She uses her beauty and recognizes in Isaac the fulfillment of her heart’s desire. We see two hearts that are looking for fulfillment. They both wanted what God wanted and when he wanted and recognized His hand immediately, because they had listening hearts, following the little beckoning voice inside. She veils herself. Not out of shame but out of respect and devotion. She keeps the garden sacred and is not in this for shameful profit and lust. She trusts that her interior beauty will shine forth in a simple trusting meeting. This story should be encouraging us when God ordains for marriage for two individuals (or priesthood or to be a nun), He will open the path before them so that they meet. Not a moment before. Rebekah had many times of going to the well, how did she know that this time would be different? Isaac had many times of walking in the evening, praying with the Lord, how did he know this time would be different? They lived an ordinary life extraordinarily. They were looking for sign posts. They had been preparing themselves precisely by those little moments of ordinary yes’s.
I can totally relate to this story. In my own life, I had just discerned out of the convent and had been aching and searching for God’s path. I wanted to be a nun. I wanted to be God’s spouse and God patiently kept showing me the deeper desire of my heart, marriage. I shushed Him so many times. I ached for God’s fulfillment and several disappointments with men who were given to me in person. There was not this quickness to follow God’s path in both hearts in seeking marriage. I could have married any one of them, but something wasn’t ready in our hearts and we weren’t exactly united or open in sharing this path. We kept curving off. Finally, in frustration, I said to the Lord flippantly, “Fine! I’ll respond to this call of marriage. I’ll put myself out there and sincerely try to follow your beckoning instead of closing the door on their faces! The locals are not for me apparently. I need to broaden my horizons. I opened an online account with Catholic Match and Ave Maria Singles and two weeks later I met the love of my life and God threw open the doors and tested my heart to see if I was truly listening and open to following. My heart beckoned me forth and I also trusted like Rebekah of her brother Laban and her father, my own father. I actually was attracted to the same man on both sites and suddenly realized it was the same person. He passed my father’s test and we met. The same thing happened, in my heart of hearts I saw Jerry. Who HE was. I felt a difference that is hard to explain. It was as if I had known him all my life. It was a deep connection. I was open to sharing life and asked for the little signposts and I got them. I had just lost my grandpa and was asking him to show me if Jerry was the one and I had to know specifically that it was from him. One of my elderly friends was antiquing and came across a little music box and her heart said, “buy this for Jacinta.” She did. When I got it I was shocked and shared with my elderly friend that what she had done was the voice of the Holy Spirit. The song the music box played was my Grandpa’s favorite love song, “I’ll be loving you, always…”
But it wasn’t all easy. I can be so stubborn sometimes and put out the fleece per say in a not trusting way. I still wanted to be God’s spouse and fought Him again and wavered. “If you want me to not marry Jerry, make him delayed in coming to me.” Good grief! God had to call out in me the determination to follow. How could such a question be put when he already had shown me he wanted it? Guess what happened? Jerry’s car broke down and I had to make the decision, “Do I follow my heart or my voice?” “Jer Bear my Dad and I will come and rescue you.” I did do a little bit more flipping but God always came through with those little beckonings of the heart and open doors even amidst a lot of interior unrest and mental health struggles of receiving a concussion. God kept opening doors and I followed. We both lifted up our eyes and were driven by a deep interior conviction. One of Jerry’s great Aunts helped me. She knew the struggle I was having just by looking at me as she too had been in the convent. “Jacinta, marriage is a holy vocation too. You are still God’s spouse, but the exterior has changed. He is still going to be the center of your heart. You are not abandoning Him by loving Jerry but choosing Him by loving Jerry.” I still had a restless heart and kept looking at the hardships not as stepping stones to a greater yes but as no’s until a retreat I took just a few months before our wedding. God said to me very clearly, “You know you can marry him, Jacinta. I still love you.”
Back to our story. Verse 66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into the tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. He had the fulfillment of his heart’s desire. A new generation was begun and his great loneliness was appeased. He hungered for the feminine presence in his life, for the companionship and love and devotion that formerly he had only known in his mother. He loved and cherished his wife. The woman’s heart is naturally open to receive and she brings it out even more in her husband. She is the heart that informs the head and calls out the best foot in her husband by her intuition. Let’s see what hardship brought to their relationship in a different episode. (Apparently Abraham also had that driving testosterone element still too as he married again because of the same ache.) There is something incredibly human about this story. It fills that deep place of desire in our hearts. Both Isaac and Abraham saw the faithfulness of God. God had provided for them. That beckoning within. He had kept his promises. We see an element of the original love he had for Sarah and the primacy of his heart singly to God’s promise through Isaac as scripture says he had more sons through his new wife but to the sons of his concubines (interesting that he considers his other wives concubines…) Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country. He didn’t want there to be a war for power and control. He wanted to pave the way for his son to inherit God’s promise.
It is interesting to note that Ishmael had 12 sons who became princes and Isaac’s son Jacob also had 12 sons. It is a juxtapositioning of God’s heart for man. Two kingdoms, one of flesh and one of spirit. This parallel is continually brought to this story also in the third generation of Isaac and his two sons who also had this struggle of mind over flesh. It was God’s plan and will over man’s will and plan. He blessed both. We see His kindness and benevolence in going along with the story. But we also learn the difference between the two kingdoms; a slave given over to lust and forcing…a master… versus a son who is begotten in love…a father. Isn’t this the battle we all still face? How do we see God? Do we see Him as controlling us for His own gains or gifting us just because He LOVES US and wants to be with us and fulfill us? He wants to just have us walk with Him and follow those little signposts not because He wants to control us but because He loves us deeply and sees the best path for us. We work together. This was something that did not sink into Abraham and Isaac right away but over time they began to learn the difference. Abraham grew in faith as did Isaac.
This brings me to my final point for this episode. We are going to look at some New Testament passages to highlight what God intended for us to learn from Abraham. Turn to Galations 3:7-14. So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”; but the law does not rest on faith, for “He who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us — for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree”– that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith.
See? God doesn’t make us do something for the sake of doing it. He takes on the obligation of law out of freedom and reverses the cycle of forced law to an open invitation to accept the gift through belief and love. Turn to Hebrews 4:14–Chapter 7. Read the first part for yourself and I’ll pick up with verse 6:13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham,* having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek. – Hebrews 6:13-20
Read – Hebrews 7:1-28 and keep reading through Chapter 11:8 as it talks of Jesus being the fulfillment of this promise to Abraham. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence he did receive him back and this was a symbol. By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. – Hebrews 11:8-20 So the example to follow is obedience in faith. Holding heaven as our home. Sojourners in a foreign land of promise, waiting for eternity.