"The Struggle for Love"... the [very] long version...

Alright. Continuing on with the sermon mentioned here, first I'll write what catches my ear upon my third listen and then I'll say stuff. So in this first part, even if they're not direct quotes, assume the thoughts and ideas are Tim Keller's, not mine. Unless I've altered something in a bad way, then that's not Tim Keller but my own misinterpretation of his words. ;)

Genesis 29:15-31...

One of the first things pointed out is how even though Jacob has begun a relationship with God, it is not an immediate remedy for his inner emptiness, rather it starts a process of transformation through mistakes and disasters. God is at work in his life and those around him anyway, even if he's not finished making mistakes and so on.

People with an inner emptiness give themselves to a hope- the idea of that "one true love".

So Tim Keller divides it into three sections:
1. What is behind that hope in the one true love?
2. There is a disillusionment that always follows.
3. What gives ultimate fulfillment is God.

First, Jacob arrives on the scene, fresh off of life failures, and Tim Keller asks, "How is he coping?" Well, he copes by making a deal that allows Laban to take advantage of him because he's so in love with Rachel. He copes by suddenly putting all his hopes in her. He works to get her and lives for her for seven years. He believes that if he could just have her her, finally something would be worth it, his life would be worth it and his mistakes would be resolved.

He quotes Ernest Becker's Denial of Death, wherein he describes how in ancient times, romantic love wasn't the goal, whereas now, we make up for a lack of inner spiritual fullness by trying to find that "one". We need to feel that our life matters and without God, we do it through the "romantic solution". We look for it in the love partner. "We want to be rid of our faults. We want to be rid of our feeling of nothingness. [...] We want redemption and nothing less."

When Jacob presents his deal to Laban, Laban sees that Jacob is vulnerable and he doesn't say yes. In verse 19, he answers, "It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me." But he doesn't actually say yes. Jacob hears yes because he wants to hear yes.

And after Jacob confronts Laban about tricking him into marrying Leah, in verse 26, Laban says, "It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn," which was exactly what Jacob did to Isaac when he tricked him into thinking he was his older brother, Esau, when Isaac was dying.

"He's doing to me exactly what I did to my father."

"Leah is the unwanted one, the one who everybody sees through, she's the ugly duckling, she's one who has been rejected, she's the one people have looked right through, she's the one who has been ignored for years and years and years." But maybe all that makes her Jacob's real soulmate- Leah fills her heart from the brokenness from all those years of rejection by being the perfect wife and mother. If she is successful in family things, she'll be somebody, have worth and be important. But in the end, this situation is actually worse than if she had never been married because she's looking to Jacob for this fulfillment and he's in the arms of the woman whose shadow she has been in for her entire life. "She's in hell."

She has four sons, the names of each carrying a particular meaning:
Reuben: see- God saw her affliction and now that she's had a son, maybe her husband will see her instead of looking past her.
Simeon: hear- God heard she was hated and after a second son, now maybe he'll listen to her.
Levi: attach- now, finally, will her husband love her and be attached to her.
Judah: Praise- she puts her hope on God and stops having children. The need is no longer there.

Tim Keller goes off on an aside for a bit, and in it, he explains how Christianity is the only religion where broken people reject God's grace constantly and God just sort of keeps after them anyway. God chooses them, whether they like it or not, and works through them. They don't earn His place in their life. And the result is all these broken "heroes" of the Bible (that so many people use to argue against Christianity because they're looking at their character rather than the work God does through their life).

"Morals won't get you into God's story but God has to come into your story."

[He also makes a second point about how even though the characters may be involved in some shady deals and practices, that doesn't imply that God nor the Bible condone that behavior or practice. If God works through broken people, those broken people are bound to do some broken stuff still.]

Back to the story-
Jacob goes to bed with "the one" and wakes up with Leah- "In all of life, through every event, though every aspect of your life there will always will be a ground note running, a ground note of cosmic disappointment."

"Leah represents something.[...] In the morning, it's always Leah. You go to bed with Rachel and in the morning, it'll always, always be Leah."

And then he quotes CS Lewis:

Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.

"In the morning, it's always Leah."

Without realizing that, we look to fill that longing on our heart with new things, different things, better things, instead of understanding that no matter which things we choose, that fulfillment just won't come with them.

There is something in your heart that you want that nothing of this world will satisfy. The "one true love" cannot be any human being. If you put [whatever you put your hope into] in the place of God you will have absolutely nothing.

Leah calls out to God at the same time as she's looking to her husband and family as her savior. The moment she realizes that and takes the deepest passionate desires of her heart away from her husband and puts them on the Lord, she becomes free.

Judah is born and "he is the one through whom the King, the scepter, will come." God chooses the ugly woman, the one nobody wanted, the one who is unloved and unlovely and says, "You're going to be the mother of Jesus."

"When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, He loved her."


Now my words. I'll break it into sections.

A) Emptiness.
B) He heard yes.
C) Laban did what Jacob did to Isaac.
D) Leah is unwanted, unloved and invisible.
E) The aside.
F) In the morning, it's always Leah.
G) Leah cries out for the wrong things, and God leads her to Himself anyway.
I) And He loves her.

A) Emptiness.
I think that we all have that. There's a longing we feel deep in our soul that can't be fulfilled by earthly things. I blogged about that a little already, in the context of that sort of longing for home, after reading Tim Keller's Prodigal God. But along with that feeling of home is also this deep-rooted desire to feel like we have worth. And that's part of what made me struggle so much with this sermon- I don't feel I have worth. And I know that money, success and family won't give it to me, but I haven't yet learned that relationships won't. Or, not even relationships but the simple validation of men. That is my most obvious emptiness. I still do feel as though if I found a guy who gets me, life would be better. Life would be more worth living. And I would have value. I would be important enough to somebody that my life would mean something.

And how am I coping with that?

Well, now's probably not the best time to ask because I don't feel I'm at my worst at the moment so I might end up saying something ridiculously cocky that I'll regret later. But for now, let's just say I'm actually working on it. I'm working on first, dissociating my value from men, and second, actually finding value in God. I know it's there, but I have yet to fully believe it.

But on a bad day? I cope with it through so-called harmless flirtation and the more harmful occasional escalation to proposition. Thank God my baggage and fears have kept me from doing anything too stupid lately though. ;)

B) He heard yes.
Jacob heard Laban say yes because he wanted to hear yes. Tim Keller jokingly asks the people listening if they've ever dealt with that. My last "relationship" was plagued by question answers. I would ask him something that required an opinion, and he would answer in a question.
me: Are you excited about coming to visit?
him: Why wouldn't I be?
And I did exactly what Jacob did- I heard the yes I wanted to hear. Every time. And I put so much hope into him that even though it was obvious that he wasn't into it, I just clung onto my own obliviousness just so I wouldn't have to face the disappointment that was inevitable.

No more question answers.

C) Laban did what Jacob did to Isaac.
This one bothered me. Jacob was so quick to quit fighting Laban on what he'd done simply because he seems to have felt he deserved the treatment he got. I'm not a revengey kind of girl. I'd rather people grow as a result of becoming aware of the pain they've caused and the betrayals and things than to learn it via a massive slap in the face like this one. But maybe that's just my empathy talking. No matter how much ill somebody may have caused me, I don't really wish the same on them. Justice, yes, but not sheer brutality. But maybe some people only learn the hard way. Maybe some people only realize what stuff feels like if it happens to them.

Or maybe, what bothers me about this section is that Jacob just seems to have no sense of justice at all. What he did to his dad, and then what he lets Laban get away with... Even if I might have made mistakes in my past, that doesn't forgive other people wronging me in the future. You can't create karma. You can't use a karma-type system to take advantage of people who have wronged others in the past. You know what I mean? I understand why Jacob relented. But I don't understand Laban's moral standing.

D) Leah is unwanted, unloved and invisible.
When Tim Keller talked about Leah, she became the first woman in the Bible to whom I really related. I never went through a long-endured phase of gawky awkwardness or anything, but a lifetime of worthlessness has left me with a certain amount of "ugly duckling syndrome" that I can't seem to shake. It's like I know I'm alright-looking and I should appreciate that, but I really can't feel it. And it's not just on the outside either. My closest friends tell me what makes me special, and on a superficial level, I understand, but deep down, I don't feel it at all. Deep down, the core of me is self-loathing, broken and really doesn't see all that much good in my person- inside or outside.

And here's Leah feeling pretty well the same way I do. And even though the people around her made her into nothing, God made her something.

E) The aside.
I liked that aside because I know how often people around here bring up Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of the Bible supposedly condoning terrible things. Just because the Bible's characters find themselves in immoral situations, it doesn't mean the Bible is condoning the behaviors or lifestyles.

F) In the morning, it's always Leah.
No matter what earthly things we put our hope in, we will always be left unfulfilled. And even though on paper, that's really easy to grasp, in reality, we're constantly looking for that fulfillment from so many things in our every day existence. I thought it was interesting that C.S. Lewis used travel in his example. I know quite a few people who put their hope in travel. It's that sense of awe they get that fulfills them temporarily. It must stir up their soul in a way that nothing else can- except worship, I guess. But the travelers I know aren't likely to drop their bags and throw their hands up anytime soon.

On the other hand, somehow, being in awe of God's creation and letting it stir your soul, even if you don't attribute it to God, seems a healthier outlet of idolatry than seeking out validation from men. They're probably equal in some way. I mean, technically, they're both worship of created things. But the awe seems to stir the soul in a more positive and powerful way than the validation does. Or maybe that's just my own lack of fulfillment and failing idols talking.

G) Leah cries out for the wrong things, and God leads her to Himself anyway.
I like this part. It's like God's just waiting for her. And then finally, she comes to Him and they live happily ever after and she doesn't have to try so hard to feel worthwhile. A fairy tale ending, I say.

I'm still working on mine. And frankly, still working on all this stuff too.

Processing. Progressing. Bit by bit.

Thank God for His patience.

I) And He loves her.
And when the Lord saw that she was not loved, He loved her. He loves her. And maybe one day, I'll be able to replace "her" with "me" and actually believe it.

Something to hope for?