Get Real November 16 Devotional
November 16, 2024
GENESIS 29:21-27 | 21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” 22 So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. 23 But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. 24 (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.) 25 When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” 26 Laban said, “This is not done in our country—giving the younger before the firstborn. 27 Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.”
By the time Jacob had waited and worked for seven years to wed Rachel, he had fallen for the pedestal syndrome. Some people put their partners on a pedestal, convinced that she or he is the ultimate answer to all their needs and perfect fulfillment of their desires. It feels good to be on a pedestal—but it is really easy to fall off. Pedestals turn our partners into ideals and fantasies not people with needs and flaws.
Rachel’s father tricks Jacob into marrying his “other daughter,” Leah. The drunken groom is unaware of the ruse until the morning after. What a shock! But my friend Craig Barnes says everyone who marries Rachel, as Jacob did, eventually wakes up beside Leah. No one can fulfill all of someone’s romantic dreams perfectly. No one can meet another person’s emotional and psychological needs fully all the time. Romance eventually meets reality.
Did Jacob set himself up for disappointment?
Do we?
