Genesis 24 is a very long chapter, telling a long story. This is the story of God providing Isaac a wife from his extended family back in the old country. He marries his father's brother's daughter.
We see Rebekah is kind. We read she is beautiful. We find that Isaac is comforted with his new wife after the bereavement of the death of his mother. It is all pretty romantic.
From this I take it Isaac was a sort of momma's boy. He replaces his mom with a surrogate mother in his new wife. The chapter ends with the statement that Isaac loved his wife. This has got to be good, whatever else I might feel about Isaac. So many marriages end up strained, more contracts than romantic. Isaac loves his wife has got to be good.
Abraham is really too old to travel back to Babylon to get Isaac a wife. He sends a most trusted servant with a pretty complicated job. The servant has faith in God too and he speaks and prays to Him. He sort of "puts a fleece" before God. He asks that certain things happen in exacted a certain way so he will have God's plan confirmed for him. Immediately after he asks it happens. He does not have to search throughout the whole city for Abraham's family, the right girl just appears before him. Later when Rebekah gets to Canaan she immediately sees Isaac in pretty much the same way. It seems she is taken with him right away, just like he is with her.
How many of you have put a fleece before God like that? How many have asked that events happen in a providential way? How many have seen God answer in the same way that he answered Abraham's servant. I think I have done it and seen it answered but I can't remember any details.
I know I have tried to get God to guide me and then find God does not give me the circumstantial coincidence that would have made it so much easier to make a decision. I was left to work it out with other knowledge that God had given me. God was maturing me, training me, helping me to stand on my own. God does not want men and women who cannot make decisions under pressure. We have to be able to trust God to guide us in other ways.
It is more likely God will work like he did yesterday with my car. I have been nursing an old car battery for quite a while. Over the winter I thought I should replace it. But I put it off. I thought after winter was over it might last until next winter. But yesterday after driving all afternoon the car finally would not start, right after I booked a room at a hotel. The car was under the hotel check in space. DW and I had to push it a few feet to space in front of our room. What better place for it to happen! No sitting in the heat waiting. I just called AAA from the comfort of my hotel room.
So I called AAA and then do have battery service. While I stayed in the room I called and in a hour a man came out, checked the car out, and sold me a battery. My old battery was over five years old. I bought it at an auto parts place and had replaced it on my own. This man came from a few towns over, the AAA guy for a rural area in central Texas. He had all sorts of gadgets including a little battery he plugged into my electrical system that kept all my radio presets while he removed the old battery and replaced it with the new. Yes I did pay more for the convenience, but it was worth it.
But anyway the point is that God was merciful and let the battery finally die in a most convenient place. DW and I praise God for his goodness despite my recalcitrance about replacing the battery earlier.
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