The Bad Beginning
Genesis 29
 
A man from the east had always dreamed of owning a cattle ranch and had finally saved enough money to buy his dream spread in Wyoming. His best friend flew out to visit and asked, “So, what's the name of your ranch?” His buddy told him that he had a really hard time coming up with a name that he liked. He and his wife couldn't agree on what to call it so they settled on, “The Double R, Lazy L, Triple horseshoe, Bar-7, Lucky Diamond ranch.” His friend was really impressed and then asked, “So where are all the cows?” To which the new rancher answered, “We had quite a few, but none of them survived the branding!” 
 
It's hard to recover from a bad beginning in business. Likewise, it's hard to recover from a bad beginning in marriage. I'm in a sermon series on “imperfect love” because I think that phrase describes MOST of our love lives. Maybe not YOU, but most of us are not living the charmed lives of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. We're not “Brangelina”. Truth be told, even “Brangelina” probably aren't living a charmed life either. In Hollywood, nothing is as it seems on the surface.
 
In this sermon series I just want to note that a lot of marriages struggle. If you have to “work hard” to just get along with that person you married...you are not alone. I want you to know that. 
 
 
 
 
A dietitian was addressing a large audience in Chicago: “The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks erode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. Vegetables can be disastrous to some and none of us realize the long term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water.
 
But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have eaten or will eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?”
 
A 75 year old man in the front row stood up and said, “Wedding cake.”
 
And now you're thinking “Terry, I can't believe you said that. You're trashing marriage and giving it a bad name. We LOVE being married. Marriage is great. Marriage is God's idea!” Okay, okay. I know marriage is good and I know that marriage is God's idea. I'm not saying that marriage is bad. I'm not against marriage, I'm for it. 
 
I don't want to discourage anyone who is married today and I don't want to discourage anyone from GETTING married today. I just want to inject a little honesty and realism into the subject and recognize that as good as marriage is, all marriages go through trouble. Even God, who INVENTED marriage, said “Those who marry will face many troubles in this life” - I Corinthians 7:28.
 
Today, specifically, I want to note that a lot of marriages struggle because of a bad beginning. 
 
However, having said that, a bad beginning in marriage does not have to result in a bad ending TO that marriage. There are some ways to overcome the imperfect love of a bad beginning. Today I want us to see how we can overcome a bad beginning in our marriage. We're going to look at what contributes to a bad beginning and then the ways to overcome.
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO A BAD BEGINNING
 
Probably no marriage in the Bible had a worse beginning than the marriage of Jacob and Leah. Their beginning is recorded in Genesis 29. I'll summarize it for you. 
 
Jacob was looking for a wife when he spied Rachel out by the well. It was love at first sight. They knew that they were meant for each other. “Some enchanted evening. You may see a stranger. You may see a stranger, across a crowded room. And somehow you know. You know even then. That somewhere you'll see her again and again.” 
 
So, Jacob went to meet the parents. Her father's name was Laban and they struck a deal that Jacob would work for Laban for seven years in order to earn the right to marry Rachel. He was so in love the Bible says that the seven years seemed like only seven days. Isn't that romantic? 
 
However, on their wedding night, wicked Laban pulled the old switcheroo. In the darkness of the honeymoon tent, Laban substituted Rachel's sister Leah for Rachel and it being dark and everything, Jacob didn't know the difference. The Bible says that when morning came, there was Leah! SURPRISE!!! Jacob wasn't exactly thrilled because he was in love with Rachel. Laban's lame excuse was that the older sister had to get married before the younger sister; right. All Jacob had to do now was work ANOTHER seven years to pay for Leah. Remember how the Bible says that the first seven years went by like seven days? Well the second seven years went by like seven minutes...UNDER WATER! It was torture. You see, Rachel was beautiful and Leah...had a good personality. 
 
But anyway, that's the wonderful, romantic story of how Jacob and Leah became man and wife.  Their marriage was messed up from the start because of deceit, pretense, baggage from both sets of parents, premature sexual relations and, tragically, Jacob's divided heart. For her entire marriage, Leah had to deal with the fact that she was married to a man who did not love her. A man whose heart belonged to another woman, and to make matters worse, that other woman was HER SISTER. 
 
What do you do when the love that should characterize your marriage is not present?   What did Leah do? Leah found a way and she has a lot to teach us this morning.
 
However, before we get to the practical part of how to deal with this situation I want to say word to our young people and singles about staying OUT of this situation to begin with. 
 
All you married people can “take five” while I talk to the “kids” for a minute. If you listen you'll think I'm getting on your case for your past mistakes and I'm not. 
 
I'm going to say something to your children and grandchildren right now which, if they bother to listen, might spare them some of the grief that we have had in our marriages. So please, give me some latitude and hold the attitude.
 
Young people, I don't think your prospective father-in-law is going to pull a “Laban” on you and try to switch your bride or groom at the last minute. But that doesn't mean you won't go into a marriage with a divided heart. 
 
God has designed us to “bond” with another person in marriage. The Bible says “The two will become one flesh.” This is only meant to happen once. Dr. Donald Joy has written a book entitled “Bonding” wherein he identifies the 12 steps of bonding that take place in courtship and marriage. 
 
When you allow yourself to become prematurely physical in a dating relationship, you will bond with that person. Then, when you break up, you will carry the “ghost” of that relationship with you for years, if not forever, and once you get married it will haunt your marriage just as Leah's marriage was haunted by Rachel. To “adulterate” something is to dilute or weaken it by adding impure ingredients. Every taste adulterated Kool-Aid? 
 
A marriage bond should be unadulterated. It should be a pure and undiluted bond. But your future marriage can be “adulterated” when you bring the “ghosts” of your past relationships into that marriage. 
 
 
 
Okay, everyone else can come on back now. What does Leah have to teach us about overcoming a bad beginning in our marriage? What can she teach us about learning to survive and thrive in a marriage when love is not all that it should be? I think she can teach us three important strategies that can make all the difference.
 
I. From the Names of Leah's Children, We Learn to Trust God
 
If any woman on earth at the time had the right to say: “God? What God?” it was Leah. She had virtually no rights as a female member of an ancient tribal society. She was used by her father to cheat Jacob out of another seven years of free labor. And Jacob hardly treated her as a wife. 
 
Yet she refused to surrender her faith that God was demonstrating his love and concern for her. That's evident from the names she gave her sons. Each one was an acknowledgment that God was quietly involved in the events of her life.
 
a. When Reuben was born, she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery.”
 
b. When Simeon was born she said “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.”
 
c. When Issachar was born she said “God has rewarded me.”
 
d. When Zebulun was born she said “God has presented me with a precious gift.”
 
When each of her six sons was born, Leah claimed it was proof that God had not forgotten her but was showering her with his mercy and affection. Her faith continued strong in spite of the fact that Jacob kept treating her like a second-class citizen. 
 
Although Leah hoped that her sons would change his heart, there is little evidence that he softened toward her at this stage in his life. Nonetheless, she continued to believe in and worship God. 
 
Anyone who is struggling with a disappointing marriage can take great encouragement from the example of Leah. Her life is proof that outward circumstances are not always an indication of God's concern and compassion for us. Just because our marriage is hurting doesn't mean God no longer loves us. As with any time of stress, trial and challenge, that's our cue to turn to God and deepen our relationship with HIM. 
 
II. From Leah's Son, We Learn to Take the Long View and Get the Big Picture
 
One fellow attended a marriage ceremony where the couple wrote their own vows.  They vowed to stay together “as long as our love shall last.” As a wedding present he gave them PAPER PLATES. Let's talk about taking the long view in marriage. 
 
Leah's fourth child was named “Judah”, which means “Praise”. As far back as the Garden of Edna when Adam and Eve first rebelled against God, a promise was made by God himself that one day the “seed” of a woman would crush the head of the serpent (the personification of the devil). 
 
In other words, God was promising that one day a child would be born who would destroy the dominion and work of the evil one in our world. This promise was later passed on to Abraham when God pledged, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 
 
The blessing was to come through Abraham's son Isaac. When Isaac's son Jacob was just a young man, God appeared to him in a dream and said, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 
 
Later, Judah was born to Jacob and Leah. Near the end of his life Jacob gathered all of his sons to his bedside and pronounced a blessing on them; the sons of Rachel AND the sons of Leah. When Judah knelt beside his elderly father, Jacob predicted that God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be fulfilled in him. 
 
If we fast-forward the tape several hundred years, we discover that a young shepherd boy named David, a descendant of Jacob and Leah, was eventually chosen to be king over the entire nation. 
 
Jump ahead another thousand years to a small village named Nazareth, where an angel tells Mary that she will give birth to the Messiah. Luke puts the final piece of the puzzle in place when he gives us the family genealogy of Mary, the mother of Jesus. 
 
He traces her ancestry back through her father, Heli. Heli was a descendant of “David, the son of Jesse...the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham...the son of Adam, the son of God.” 
 
That's the story of God's mysterious working in Leah's life. Although she did not fully understand the role she was playing, she was being used by God to complete a promise made to Adam, affirmed to Abraham, and then passed on to Jacob, and from Jacob to Judah. 
 
Through Jacob and Leah's fourth son, Judah, came David, Solomon, Joseph, Mary, and eventually Jesus, the Christ. Even though Jacob may have loved Rachel more, it was through Leah that God created the ancestral line that eventually gave us the Savior.
 
What if Leah had simply given up on her marriage? What if she had allowed her feelings to dictate that she should leave Jacob or take another lover? God literally used Leah's faith in his higher purposes for her marriage to help accomplish the salvation of the world. 
 
From a human standpoint the marriage was initially a disaster. It was launched in deceit and characterized by neglect. Yet from it came the most significant human being ever to walk the face of the earth, Jesus of Nazareth.
 
God has a higher and unseen purpose in our relationships than we can imagine. If we look at our husband or wife from a purely human standpoint, we can easily conclude it's pointless. And if it's a big mistake, why try to hang in there any longer? Why not fold our cards and leave the table? How many nights do we need to cry ourselves to sleep, or fight back tears at the dinner table before admitting the marriage was a blunder and it's time to get out? 
 
 
Let me suggest that maybe God has a bigger picture in mind for our life and marriage than we ever dreamed possible. But with few exceptions, that purpose won't be accomplished by choosing to give up and get out. 
 
The truth is God's purposes are greater than our poor choices. He can accomplish things in our lives we never imagined, in spite of our mistakes. God can use imperfect people to accomplish his perfect will. Jesus' family tree is an example. 
 
The ancestry of Joseph and Mary reads in some cases like a soap opera. In the list of names we discover adulterers, prostitutes, idol worshipers and murderers. Why would God print such embarrassing information about the family ancestry of Joseph and Mary? After all, this is the Bible. You would think God would have edited it more carefully. 
 
But those names are there deliberately to make the point that God specializes in using damaged goods, and marriages, to accomplish his purposes. The doctrine of grace teaches that God shows us his mercy and favor even when we've messed up or made some major bad choices. Our bad choice is not the final word.
 
III. From Leah's Grave, We Learn to Keep Hope Alive
 
Genesis tells us that Jacob eventually decided to leave his crooked father-in-law’s business. When he asked Leah and Rachel if they were willing to go with him, they both replied “yes.” 
 
 
Despite all the hurt in Leah's life, when the moment arrived, she chose to cast her lot with her husband and leave her father behind.
 
After Jacob arrived in the land of Canaan, his wife Rachel died while giving birth to their second son, Benjamin. It was a devastating loss for Jacob, and he set up a pillar as a perpetual memorial over her grave. Apparently Leah outlived her sister by several more years. 
 
Although Genesis is silent about the intervening time, we are told that decades later a famine forced Jacob to move his family to Egypt to avoid starvation. As he reached the end of his life years later, he gathered his sons around him and made one final request. 
 
“Bury me...in the cave...which Abraham bought as a burial place. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah.” When he had finished giving these instructions he died.
 
Jacob, with his final breath, asks his sons to bury him next to LEAH, not Rachel. In a culture that highly regarded the sanctity of tradition and family, Jacob reminded his sons that his grand-parents were buried together, his parents were buried together, and that now he wished to be buried next to his wife Leah. 
 
The very fact he buried her in the ancestral plot and asked to be placed next to her is a profound statement of his honor and esteem for her at the end of his life. 
 
The fact he regarded Leah as belonging in the same category as his grandmother and mother suggests a deeper level of intimacy, bonding, and love for Leah that had finally taken root in his heart. 
 
Although he spent the majority of his life favoring Rachel and spurning Leah, in his final years he came to see his marriage to Leah as the legacy God had blessed. He accorded her the same honor given to Sarah and Rebekah, the beloved wives of Abraham and Isaac. 
 
A lady was out hitting all the local garage sales when she came across an old needlepoint picture that read, “Prayer Changes Lives.” She bought it, took it home and began to look for just the right place to hang the new picture.
 
Finally, she decided that it went well in the dining room over the dinning room table. With great pride she admired her garage sale discovery and could hardly wait to show it to her husband. That evening when her husband arrived home from work, she showed the picture to him but he made no indication one way or another of his likes or dislikes of the new picture.
 
The next day as the lady was cleaning the house, she discovered that the new picture was gone. As she continued to clean the house, she discovered the picture behind a bookcase. She thought, “That's strange,” and re-hung the picture in its original location. The next day, to her dismay, she discovers the picture gone again and again discovers it behind the bookcase.
 
 
When the husband arrives home, she confronts her husband and asks him if he is displeased with the art of the needlepoint, to which he responds, no, not at all, it is a great work of art.
 
She continues, is it the place? Do you not like the place it is hung? He says, no, not at all, it is in a great location. She concludes that it must be the message and asks him if it's the message that he doesn't like. He says, no, not at all, the message is great.
 
Finally, she says, then what's the problem? He says, “I just don't like change.”
 
Let's assume we married someone that we now wish we had not married and they don't seem to be changing. Maybe my marriage is strained, my spouse distant, and my prospects for the future are looking grim. Is my life and marriage destined for nothing but unhappiness? The scriptures hold out the hope that with God “All things are possible.” Over and over again the New Testament refers to God as “the God of all hope.” 
 
If God can heal a marriage such as Jacob and Leah's, why can't he do the same thing in our lives? Why can't God take a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of tenderness toward my mate? Why can't he demonstrate to us that his plan for our lives is much bigger and more magnificent than we have ever imagined? Why can't he reveal to us that he's been operating in our lives long before we ever realized it?
 
There is hope for every marriage. The hope is found in trusting God, who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.