Rebekah (Part One)

by Christa Flannery

Rebekah is one of my favorite characters in the whole Bible. In Genesis 25, Abraham (father of the Hebrew people) sends out his servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac. After a long journey, the servant settles near a well and prays that God will show him who Isaac's wife should be by this sign: that when he asks for a drink of water, the woman will also offer to water his camels. Along comes Rebekah and fulfills everything that the servant had prayed before he's even finished praying.

It's easy to see the miracle that God performed in answering the servant's prayer so immediately. But what about Rebekah's part? Was it super-natural inspiration that had her offer to water the servant's camels? Was she magically at the right place at the right time? I'm not convinced.

Rebekah was simply doing her evening chore. She was at the well every evening, at approximately that same time, because it was her family duty. And I think that Rebekah's offer to water the camels was her amazing servant heart in action (Between the servant's ten camels, Rebekah probably served 260 to 400 gallons of water!)

As moms of young kids, it's easy to get discouraged, to feel like we do nothing significant. We stay home, wipe hundreds of running noses and change millions of dirty diapers (not to mention the laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc). Is what we do really important or significant to other or to God?

I imagine Rebekah pouring gallon after gallon into the water trough thinking "God, I feel insignificant. I wish I could do something more important. I wish I had something more to give." And God met her there. He saw in her simple (yet overwhelming) act of service what He was looking for and made her the mother of the most important nation in history.

The next time you find yourself thinking "I wish I was doing something more important" or the words "I'm just a mom" drain your courage, remember Rebekah. As moms, we're more like her than we can imagine. We do our day to day, simple but often overwhelming tasks. You know what? It's exactly where God wants us to be. He has and will continue to meet us there. Why? Because there is nothing more important than these little lives, and the investment that we make into the future by investing into them.