OOO-WWWEE!!! THANK YA JESUS!

Here it is, a month-month and a half down the road from my last post, and I finally have time to not only gather some thoughts together, but to post them as well. For about the last week or so, I've been wanting to write something, but I haven't had a clue what it would be about. That was up until tonight in my Old Testament class.

It seems funny to me that it would be my OT class of all my classes that would give me fuel for the creative fire of my blogging, but there you go....

You see, I don't know if you've noticed yet, whether by my previous writings, or my profile pics, or by my personality, but I am a 23, almost 24 year old DUDE; a GUY; an HOMBRE... I am a MAN! And I love it. Now with that in mind, here's the question: What is the difference in the thought patterns of a 14 year old boy and a 24 year old man....

Well, believe it or not, there are some, albeit probably not too too many, differences. But there is one thing that has not changed. GIRLS. You know I don't know if we ever get over that. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean that when we get married that it's ok for our attention to be directed to any other woman other than our wife. And know this is for sure....... I ain't never gonna get over that girl that the LORD's got for me, and that's dang skippy! OOO-WWEE!!! THANK YA JESUS!

Here's what I'm getting at... We have been talking for the last two weeks in my OT class about the Patriarchs in the book of Genesis, and it all started with a discussion of Adam.

And it begins (the inspiration for this blog, not the creation account), not with the forming of Adam, but with the bringing forth of Eve from Adam. If there's one thing that Adam's response was not, it was him being lackluster about the entrance of Eve into his world. Adam was STOKED when he saw Eve for the first time. I'm tellin you, that boy was happier than a bird dog on the opening day of hunting season. If he would've had a tail, it would've been waggin. Look at what he says when the LORD shows him Eve for the very first time... Genesis chapter 2, verse 23:

And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

Now, I really wish that I could do the passage justice, but because it's written down for us and we don't have a video of it, we can't really get the full depth of what he's actually saying here in English. Now, I'm not a Hebrew scholar (in fact, I haven't even taken Hebrew yet), but it is my understanding that in the original language Adam is just about to jump out of his skin. My unauthorized Jeff Martin interpretation would be something like this....

Hallelujah! God, You are way to good to me! You were able to take something out of me and make that beautiful creature.... OOO-WWEEE!!! THANK YA LORD! WOW! In fact, that's what I'm gonna call her, WOMAN, cause she came out of Man, but then again, she ain't no man, and for that God, I praise you! You do excellent work!"

Now, I can already tell that this blog is going to go way too long, but I don't give a rip cuz I've got a lot to say.

If you skip a couple of chapters ahead, you move past Abraham and Sarah (who was SMOKIN by the way), and Isaac and Rebekah, and you come to Jacob and Rachel. So check it out, I'm gonna try and give you the abridged version (It's in Genesis 29; go look it up.)

• Jacob has already not only stolen Esau's birthright, but also his blessing, and Esau is beyond pissed at Jacob and wants to kill him.
• So Jacob ends up fleeing from his brother and sets off to Paddan-aram.
• On his way, he has a dream at Bethel, and then he ends up at this field with a well in it and sees three flocks waiting to be watered.
• Now, the shepherds are chillin because they've got to wait for everybody else to get there so that they can all remove the stone that's on top of the well. This is a big #*&#% stone. That's how they keep just anybody from using it. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that water in a desert = super valuable.
• Jacob starts chattin with the guys and he's like, "What's goin on? So you guys know some dude by the name Laban? You do, cool. Is he doin alright?"
• The shepherds are like, "Yeah, we know Laban, in fact here comes his daughter"

And here's where we pick up. Jacob sees Rachel coming and immediately he realizes that not only is he supposed to choose his wife from the house of Laban, which she is, but that this girl is SLAMMIN! Dawg, this girl is F.I.N.E.- FINE! So what's he do? What every other brother on the face of the Earth would do... "Hey guys, don't ya'll have something to do with these sheep.... Go on, water them and get them out in the field." AKA... "Go on dawg, get outta here. Ya'll are playin with the business and need to get to steppin."

The shepherds respond that they've got to wait for everybody to get there so that they can move the stone together. But Jacob ain't havin it. You see, by this time, Rachel's gotten to the well and so the brother has got to take some initiative. He rolls the stone out of the way on his own, and then goes on to water her flock.

He then proceeds to strike up a conversation with her and he's like, "Oh you're from the house of Bethuel, check it out... ME TOO!!! Yeah! Oh girl, I'd love to meet your father. Yeah, tell him his nephew's in town."

So Jacob stays with Laban, his uncle, for a month, and Laban tells him that he should name his wages so that he'd stay and would work for him. Now, Laban has two daughters:

1. Leah - the oldest who's not bad looking, but she's not all that good looking either. The Bible uses a Hebrew idiom, "And Leah's eyes were weak" meaning that she was just so-so to look at.
2. Rachel - the second of the two who is Miss Middle East. Jacob is already head over heels for this girl.

So Jacob says, "I'll work for you seven years, and you'll give me Rachel." Laban agrees, and the deals done. It turns out that Laban deceives Jacob (hmm, the one who supplants (Jacob) is deceived by Laban), and the story goes one for another 20 chapters until Jacob (now Israel) dies in Egypt.

But here's what I want to pull out of Jacob and Rachel's story:

1. Rachel is just doing what she does on a normal basis and going about her life being faithful to her task.
2. Jacob is running from his own family because he's a lying thief, and only agrees to serve God if God will protect him on his journey to and fro. And yet, God's grace is not contingent upon Jacob's attitude, but God's nature.
3. Jacob gets Rachel by serving her. He removes the stone from the well and waters her flock. When he's deceived and given Leah as his bride, he works another seven years to get Rachel. Jacob is not the most outstanding and upright man at this point in his life, but one thing is for sure, he is vigilant and determined to get this girl.
4. Just as Eve was a gift to Adam, Rachel is a gift from God to Jacob. We already know that Jacob wasn't exactly the stereotypical guy that you'd want chasing you, but God was gracious to him all the same so that His divine plan would come to pass.

Here's the deal, this blog has been written with mainly other guys in mind. And this is the kicker:

Fellas, sometimes we have to go looking for the girl of our dreams. And you know what, she may very well end up looking like Leah or Rachel. That doesn't really matter. What matters is that when we do find her, we see that she is a woman who is not only faithfully going about what she's supposed to be doing, but she is respecting her father, and being submissive to his will. I don't believe for a moment that Rachel was not impressed by Jacob offering to work 7 years in her father's house in order to win her hand in marriage. If it would have been me, I would've been like, how's 7 months sound? Sound ok? So when it came time for her to marry Jacob, I don't think that she was too happy to watch her sister be given to Jacob instead of her. Then she had to wait 7 more years to be with Jacob. Let me tell you, 14 years is a long time. Our response to such a woman should be that we understand that she is indeed a gift from God to us who don't always deserve her. And because of that, we are to serve her, pursue her, fight for her, and cherish her all the days of our life.

Now I know that there are a lot of cultural differences between this story and our own cultural constructs. Incest, polygamy, and arranged marriages to name a few. But here's the deal: This is the inspired, infallible Word of the Living God, and it's message doesn't loose any potency when it doesn't match up exactly to our culture.

Go out and find that Eve, that Rachel who captures your eye, makes you want to serve her, who forces you to draw closer to the Lord, and who is submissive to the authority in her life. I didn't say subversive, that's a-whole-nother story. After all, Rachel was a little firecracker herself. I don't know about you, but I don't want just a ho-hum kind of girl. I need a girl with personality and wit and who fiercely challenges me to not only be a better man, but a better man of God.

This girl is not going to be easy to find. But she is findable. Search for her, serve her, love her, and lead her. Be more than what Jacob was to Rachel. Be so wonderful to her that you fulfill the example to the world of the relationship between Christ and His church set out in Ephesians 5. Do this and never forget the moment that God brought her into your life and you said, "OOO-WWWEE!!! THANK YA JESUS!"

-Jeff