Faithful People Still Have Trials

Faithful People Still Have Trials

 

How do you handle complaining?

There is a famine in the land.

God tells Isaac not to go the Egypt

but to live in the land where I tell you,

but stay a while in Gerar.

With that command,

God reassures him of the promise to his dad

and the increased blessing He would give him.

Isaac has the same fears as his dad;

we see this when he says to Rebekah,

“Say you are my sister in order to save my life.”

When Abraham told Sarah, this was a half truth;

but no truth when Isaac said it.

Abimelech catches Isaac in the lie and rebukes him;

demonstrating God’s ability to protect him even when he doubts.

God shows Isaac how quickly He can bless him.

Isaac’s first crop increases 100 times

and that was the start of his great wealth.

 With the blessing comes trials.

The Philistines were envious

and filled in all the wells his father had dug.

Abimelech out of fear asks Isaac to move.

Disputing and quarreling followed Isaac

until he had moved three times.

When he arrives at Beer-sheba,

God tells him not to be afraid because He is with him.

Abimelech comes to make a treaty with Isaac

and they left in peace.

 The same day Abimelech leaves,

God blesses Isaac with a new well.

Isaac’s life of God’s blessing

brought disputes and quarreling into his life

and became God’s method to move him.

It was all part of God’s plan,

but it seemed to be a mixed bag of blessing and cursing;

until God moved him to a place of peace.

A place large enough to hold the blessings God had in store for him.

Maybe God will use rejection in your life

to move you into a larger place

so you will have more room for His blessings.

The way we handle disputes

reveals our ability to handle

more blessings and responsibility.

1 Corinthians 11:18-20 NIV

18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church,

 there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.

19 No doubt there have to be differences among you

to show which of you have God's approval.

Scripture Reading

Genesis 26:1-27:1 NIV

26:1 Now there was a famine in the land

— besides the earlier famine of Abraham's time

— and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar.

2 The LORD appeared to Isaac and said,

"Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live.

3 Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you.

For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands

and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.

4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky

and will give them all these lands,

and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,

5 because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements,

my commands, my decrees and my laws."

6 So Isaac stayed in Gerar.

7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife,

he said, "She is my sister," because he was afraid to say, "She is my wife." He thought,

"The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful."

8 When Isaac had been there a long time,

Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window

and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

9 So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, "She is really your wife!

Why did you say, 'She is my sister'?"

Isaac answered him, "Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her."

10 Then Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us?

One of the men might well have slept with your wife,

and you would have brought guilt upon us."

11 So Abimelech gave orders to all the people:

"Anyone who molests this man or his wife shall surely be put to death."

12 Isaac planted crops in that land

and the same year reaped a hundredfold,

because the LORD blessed him.

13 The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy.

14 He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him.

15 So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham,

the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.

16 Then Abimelech said to Isaac,

"Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us."

17 So Isaac moved away from there

and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.

18 Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham,

which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died,

and he gave them the same names his father had given them.

19 Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there.

20 But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said,

"The water is ours!"

So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him.

21 Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also;

so he named it Sitnah.  

22 He moved on from there and dug another well,

and no one quarreled over it.

He named it Rehoboth, saying,

"Now the LORD has given us room and we will flourish in the land."

23 From there he went up to Beersheba.

24 That night the LORD appeared to him and said,

"I am the God of your father Abraham.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants

for the sake of my servant Abraham."

25 Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD.

There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well.

26 Meanwhile, Abimelech had come to him from Gerar,

with Ahuzzath his personal adviser and Phicol the commander of his forces.

27 Isaac asked them, "Why have you come to me,

since you were hostile to me and sent me away?"

28 They answered, "We saw clearly that the LORD was with you; so we said,

'There ought to be a sworn agreement between us'

— between us and you.

Let us make a treaty with you

29 that you will do us no harm,

just as we did not molest you but always treated you well and sent you away in peace. And now you are blessed by the LORD."

30 Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.

31 Early the next morning the men swore an oath to each other.

Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

32 That day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had dug.

They said, "We've found water!"

33 He called it Shibah,

and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba.  

34 When Esau was forty years old,

he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite,

and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.

35 They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.