Powerful Independence Meets Interdependence
Now Isaac… went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel …she took her veil and covered herself. …Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her. Genesis 24: 62-66
I borrowed this title off of Kathleen Humphrey as she commented on a previous blog. This blog in particular is the first post thesis blog that is not simply an exhortation but an attempt to continue to do a study through the Bible on redemptive gifts related to nations and individuals. You may not have realized it but that is what you have been studying if you have been reading these blogs. As the quoted scripture indicates we are in Genesis 24, and are talking about the adult man Isaac and his wife Rebekah. Isaac was forty when he married his wife. His cooperation with his father in the sacrifice of himself demonstrates a rare humility in regards to the will of God. On the evening he was meditating it is likely that he was meditating on his wife to be. He knew his father Abraham had sent his servant to find him a wife. Isaac was prepared to dedicate his love to a choice God appointed, his father initiated, and a servant executed. Isaac demonstrates independence in the choice to love; he demonstrates interdependence when he submits his personal will to those that the Lord has placed in his life.
Rebekah trust is no less noteworthy. The decision she makes is a lifelong one. It is one that would take her away from her family of origin permanently. With very few words she makes a decision to submit to God, to a servant and to a man she has never seen. She simply said, “I will go,” a choice was made and a life was entered into.
We may think that the time period that I am referencing has no application to our modern life. This was after all an arranged marriage, but I believe that it has great application. Isaac could have made Rebekah a wife of obligation and duty, but he used his powerful independence and chose to love her. Rebekah could have chosen to stay with her own people and in her own place but she stepped off that camel and she married the man. They lived together interdependent, not perfectly but in a lifelong union.
What does this middle aged man and probably teenage girl teach us. They teach us that love and commitments are choices. If they being strangers could work out a lifelong union can we who have identified our spouses through affection and dispositions chose to love the way they did? Doesn’t this use of powerful independence relate to our own personal holiness or lack thereof?
Time ticks to the rhythm of choices. Each day provides the opportunity to choose a life submitted to God. Our society has made us to believe that our choices today are shackled to the events and experiences of the past. It has communicated that we are victims to unconscious motivations that cause to behave and act in ways that we cannot control. Many will quote Romans 7: 14-20 to support this erroneous position. Romans 7 is not independent of Romans 8, verses 12 –13 read, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” In other words choice, The Lord God has made us each powerfully independent. Free to choose the flesh, as Isaac could have chosen to treat Rebekah as an object, but he loved her as his wife. Rebekah responded in glorious submission.
Jesus also had an arranged marriage. He married a bride of the father’s choosing. Will we who are his cover ourselves with a veil of submission. Will we chose to live with the one who chose to love us? Isaac and Rebekah teach us how. Chose this day to Love and to Submit.
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