Genesis 25:19-21

2008.Apr.12 02:56

Prayer for Kids

Read Genesis 25:19-21 | Full Chapter

These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
(Genesis 25:19-21, ESV)

Back to barrenness. Hmmm.

Having and trying to have children has a strong emotional component; it’s likely that Rebekah and Isaac have become very frustrated over the years of trying to have children and not being able to. But, in the end, they do have two sons.

There’s probably a half-dozen lessons in this: patience, seeking God’s help through prayer, not blaming God, three other lessons left as an exercise to the reader to fill out the half-dozen.

Barrenness, in the sense of not being able to have children, can symbolize a number of other things, especially as relates to “my plans”. I plan to do this or that but I keep running into walls. When Paul and Timothy "passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia" (Acts 16:6, NASB) , that’s an instance of a barren plan. The intention and desires are there, but something keeps it from happening. In this example, that something is God’s will, but it’s often “other stuff” that gets in the way.

It’s seems to me, perhaps inaccurately, that the best way to deal with barrenness is not to get caught up in it. In other words, ask God to heal whatever is the problem, when appropriate, and then go on. It’s so easy to get focused on being frustrated with the one issue that won’t work out. Again, I look at Paul and his various compatriots in Acts. When they have to leave a city, or don’t get to go on to one, they don’t obsess with that city, with that barren country, rather they go on to the next place. They keep fulfilling the specific will of God in their lives, not so much by looking for “open doors” and all that, but by being persistent in the practice of sharing the gospel of Jesus, regardless of location or situation. God can keep me from acting in certain places and environments, if I am acting continuously according to his directions to me; but it will be of no benefit for him to direct me to a situation if I am not anyway doing his will.

So, to return to Rebekah and Isaac, my hope is that they didn’t allow this lack of children to keep them from pursuing God’s will in all other areas of their lives. Still, that doesn’t mean they stop hoping nor that they stop "in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving [letting their] requests be made known to God" (Phillipians 4:6, ESV) .