"The Perfect Love Story" (Gen 29-30)

"For love is as strong as death...It's flames are flames of fire. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house it would be utterly despised" (Song of Solomon)

It is amazing how drawn we all are to a love story, Boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after. What is it about a beautiful love story that transports us to a world outside our own, a world where only good things can happen and where maybe for once perfection can reign and good prevail. A love story seems so natural to our DNA yet so foreign to our reality, some say it belongs in the movies, a picture frame or....

Sailing into the arms of Perfect love

.......in the pages of a book.

It is in the pages of one book, The Bible that we join another perfect love story found in Gen 29-30. A young man named Jacob meets a beautiful Shepherd girl Rachel and they fall in love. Jacob works for seven years in order to marry the love of his life. The years seem like days because of his deep love for her and on his wedding day something goes terribly wrong. Rachel's father tricks him by trading Rachel for her older sister Leah and before Jacob knows it, he is married to the wrong woman. Jacob however decides to work another seven years so that he can marry Rachel as well, and so he did. So Jacob, Leah and Rachel are a family and they live happily ever after....not really.

You see, Jacob's family story unfolds with Leah the "unloved wife", is comforted by God so she has four boys (Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah) while Rachel is left barren. Jealousy leads Rachel to give another woman called Bilhah to Jacob so that she can have children for her.  In the cultural context of the day this was not a strange practice...don't ask me why? Nevertheless, Bilhah gives birth to two sons Dan and Naphtali, which only makes matters worse in the house because Leah is not happy. So she decides to also give her husband another woman Zilpah to have children for her. Zilpah and Jacob have two sons Gad and Asher. The story continues to get messy when Leah negotiates her way into Jacob's bed one night and conceives and bears a son Issachar and later another son Zebulun. As for Rachel God finally remembers her and she has a son whom she names Joseph. Can you imagine being Jacob in this household full of strife and jealousy. I imagine him saying, "Did I work 14 years for this mess...I want out....Lord save me from my own family... I see no hope...I want out!". What a less than perfect love story this is...no trace of that undying love he once had...is there hope for such a crazy messed up family?

The storms may sail in but the pillars of Perfect love endures Forever (1 Cor 13)

This not so perfect love story doesn't end here, because the perfect Lover has been working behind the scenes, individually pursuing  Jacob, Leah and Rachel so that He may show them true love that never disappoints, He desired to hold them right in the core of their own mess and wipe off all the things that made them cry, that made them feel alone, insecure, dissatisfied. The perfect lover was there all along wooing them into the very core of love. True love which is kind, patient, holds no record of wrongs but rejoices in Truth. A Love that hopes in all things, a Love that never fails (1 Cor 13). Yes the perfect Lover took their messed up family and out of it birth a nation called Israel one which 2000 years later still holds the attention of the world. Israel a nation who hosted God Himself, providing the platform for the  consummation of His love for all mankind. So that now through His death and resurrected all of mankind who believes in Him can enter into this perfect love story all our souls long for (John 3:16).

Yes my beloved the reason we all long for a perfect love story is because we were made to receive one. So will you receive the perfect Lover today and enter into the rest of perfect love? A Love you were designed to receive, now this is true comfort for the soul.

"This is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the payment for our sins" (1 John 4:10)