Approval or Achievement?
Dying To Self, Part 3
If you have your bible turn to Genesis 29
We’ve been looking for the last couple weeks
at the life of Jacob,
and one of the things we saw is that
God uses conflicted, complicated people,
which is a good thing
because all of us are conflicted, complicated people.
And despite the fact that we’re far from perfect,
God loves us and still has a plan for us,
and is still in the process
of making us more like Christ.
Today we’re going to look at a story in which
all the different characters
are trying to control their future,
and manipulate their destiny,
and from their mistakes and choices,
we’re going to see some lessons for our own lives.
Jacob has just left home,
he’s running from his brother Esau,
because he stole Esau’s blessing
and Esau wants to kill him,
we talked about that story a couple weeks ago,
and learned that
God can’t bless who you pretend to be.
So Jacob is heading north to his Uncle Laban’s place,
Gen 29:1
Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the eastern peoples. 2 There he saw a well in the open country, with three flocks of sheep lying near it because the flocks were watered from that well. The stone over the mouth of the well was large. 3 When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well's mouth and water the sheep.
So they had a system set up,
Because the stone was so large,
they would wait until
all the shepherds with their flocks got there,
and then they’d move it together.
Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well.
4 Jacob asked the shepherds, "My brothers, where are you from?"
"We're from Harran," they replied.
Well, that’s exactly where Jacob was headed,
that’s where his Uncle lived,
so…
5 He said to them, "Do you know Laban, Nahor's grandson?"
"Yes, we know him," they answered.
6 Then Jacob asked them, "Is he well?"
"Yes, he is," they said, "and here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep."
7 "Look," he said, "the sun is still high; it is not time for the flocks to be gathered. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture."
In other words,
you guys are wasting perfectly good daylight, sitting around
waiting on other people to move the stone,
why don’t you get the sheep back out there
where they can eat.
8 "We can't," they replied, "until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we will water the sheep."
9 While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was their shepherd. 10 When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and Laban's sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well
All by himself,
and watered his uncle's sheep.
Now you have to understand, Rachel was a looker.
And when Jacob sees her, he does by himself
what normally took several men to do.
He rolls the stone away and waters her sheep.
Which just proves,
there’s no limits what a man will do
to impress a woman.
These other guys are standing around
waiting to do it together,
but Jacob says,
Oh no, I got this,
and he singlehandedly bench-presses the stone
when the hot girl walks into the gym.
Then the next thing he does is a little forward…
11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel
Its like, hey girl, did you see me move that stone?
and began to weep aloud.
Now there’s a lot going on here,
some of it is cultural,
but some of it is emotional,
You don’t really see this happening in the bible,
where a guy kisses a girl and gets emotional
the first time they meet,
so its pretty obvious that right from the start,
Jacob has a thing for Rachel.
By the way, in bible times
it was not considered taboo
for you to marry your cousin,
hopefully things have changed in your extended family
concerning that practice,
I know that our family backgrounds are not all from Ohio,
so I don’t want to make any assumptions,
if you know what I mean.
Verse 12
He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.
13 As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, "You are my own flesh and blood."
Now we’re going to discover later
that Laban did not have good intentions for Jacob,
Have you discovered that
not everybody who hugs and kisses you,
wants what’s best for you?
Not everybody who is good to you, is good for you.
Verse 14
After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, 15 Laban said to him, "Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be."
Laban has noticed that Jacob is a hard worker,
he does a good job,
plus he’s a relative,
so he decided to make him a job offer,
and so he asks him,
what do you want for pay?
16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah had weak eyes,
Now there some controversy over
what it really means in the Hebrew
when it says she had weak eyes.
Some people say it means she was cross-eyed,
or she had a lazy eye, or whatever,
But no matter how you translate the phrase, weak eyes,
it’s not a complement.
And to make it even worse,
she’s got a hot younger sister.
It goes on in verse 17:
but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful.
And we know from the past two weeks
that Jacob was driven
by the way things seem on the surface,
he was a very surface level person,
just as many people are today,
so it says,
18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel."
Now, she must have looked incredible,
because 7 years is a long time.
Back then it was traditional that
there would be a bride price,
that a husband would have to pay,
but Jacob had to run from home,
He says, I’m broke, I’ve got nothing to give.
but I'll work for you seven years
19 Laban said, "It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me." 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.
That’s like the sweetest verse in the bible right there.
But when you read the next verse,
you figure out where Jacob’s mind was at.
21 Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her."
Okay Jacob, tell us how you really feel.
22 So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.
And there must have been a lot of alcohol at this feast.
I’ll prove it to you by what happens next.
Verse 23
But when evening came, Laban took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob accidentally made love to the wrong woman,
Now think about this,
how drunk do you have to be,
to accidentally make love to the wrong woman,
and you have no clue about it.
24 And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant.
The next verse is hilarious…
When morning came, there was Leah!
She’s going, Hey Jacob, Hey big fella. Surprise!
there was Leah!
Have you ever worked really hard for one thing,
but then it didn’t end up like you planned,
you ended up with something else?
Have you ever been disappointed because
you worked so hard for something,
but once you got it,
it wasn’t all you expected it to be?
I once had this dream of being a Navy jet pilot.
And I have never worked harder for anything in my life
than I worked at getting through the Naval Academy,
and then through Navy flight school.
It took me about 7 years for those 2 schools,
so about the same amount of time as Jacob worked.
And then I was finally there, the dream was reality.
I joined VS-37, a squadron
onboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise,
I was a pilot flying the S-3 Viking jet,
And shortly after I joined the squadron,
I kissed Kathy goodbye for 8 months,
and the Enterprise sailed off into the Pacific Ocean.
And all of us pilots would have loved to fly every day,
but jet fuel is expensive,
even back then it cost about $10-20,000
every time I climbed into the jet.
So most of our time was spent
in meetings and training and paperwork.
But I was flying several times a week,
so we’d get catapulted off the end of the carrier,
go fly for 4 hours,
and then the highlight for a pilot was the carrier landing.
And so I got my first 10 carrier landings,
then 20, then 30, then 40, 50, 60, 70,
but at some point the thrill of doing something new,
started to wear off,
and it occurred to me,
you know, this is kind of like a job.
I didn’t think that being a jet pilot was gonna be like a job.
But it feels kind of like a job.
And it’s a fun job most of the time,
but I don’t know if I feel like I’m really helping anyone,
or changing the world,
I just go fly around over the ocean for several hours,
then come back and land.
Its like a job.
and so then I had to ask the question,
Is this what I want to invest my life in?
And I eventually decided, no, I don’t think so.
It was kind of like,
I woke up after the dream wedding night,
and discovered that
I was lying next to the wrong woman.
Jacob is in this situation,
lying next to the wrong woman,
and its kind of his fault,
but its kind of not.
He was deceived,
but it really serves him right,
because he was a deceiver.
so Jacob ran out of the tent, buck naked…
now it doesn’t say that, but you know he did
after he wakes up next to the wrong woman.
Verse 25…
So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this?
Have you ever opened a present…
expecting one thing,
and you pretended you liked it,
But inside you’re going,
What is this?
Uncle Laban,
What is this you have done to me. I served you for Rachel, didn't I?
And this is a pivotal moment in his life…
Why have you deceived me?"
Well Jacob, maybe its because
you’re simply reaping what you sowed.
In case you forgot, Jacob,
the whole reason you’re at Laban’s house,
is because you deceived your father and your brother,
by pretending to be Esau.
And now the trickster has gotten tricked.
How do you think they felt when you deceived them…
Not a good feeling is it?
Here’s the lesson for all of us.
If you live a lie,
you’ll eventually wake up next to Leah.
You can count on it,
God cannot be mocked,
whatever you sow, you will one day reap.
For 7 years, Jacob thought he got away with
deceiving his dad, and tricking Esau.
He ran away just in time,
before Esau could get him back,
and he though he got away with it,
he thought,
hey, I escaped all the consequences.
But here we see a picture, of how God works.
You see, God doesn’t immediately step in
and right every wrong,
does he.
He doesn’t immediately pay people back
for what they’ve done.
No. The way he works is,
He’ll let life happen to you for a little while,
He doesn’t immediately stop you
from doing wrong,
or making mistakes,
and for a while it can seem like
there’s no consequences,
for a while it can seem like its fun,
for a while it can seem like
God is overlooking what you’ve done,
and you got away with it,
But eventually, morning comes,
and there is Leah.
and then you realize
the unchangeable truth of this principle,
that God will not be mocked,
Maybe there’s some of you here right now,
and you’ve been deceiving people,
or trying to deceive God,
you’ve been living one way
when God has called you to another,
you’ve been chasing things
that God has shown you are not right for you,
you’ve been living a lie,
and so far it looks like you’ve gotten away with it.
The truth is, you may get away with it for 7 years,
but eventually, the morning comes.
And God’s grace will be there,
but so will certain consequences.
You may be able to fool the people around you,
you may be able to fool your parents,
or your spouse or your kids,
but you won’t fool God.
Some of you know this from experience.
You tried something that people told you not to,
you experimented with something,
and at the time it seemed fun and cool,
and you were just dabbling in it, nothing serious,
and everybody was doing it,
but 7 years later
you wake up with an addiction you can’t break,
It looked fun, it looked harmless,
it looked like Rachel, it looked sexy,
but then morning comes, and here’s Leah.
and now its like chains and fetters on me,
and I can’t break free
because morning always comes.
And so Jacob reaps what he sowed.
This reminds me of an old story,
I know you’ve probably heard it,
but it’s about a contractor who had a employee
who’d worked for him for 30 years,
and was getting ready to retire.
The contractor told him
he had one more house for him to build,
before he retired,
and he gave him all the specifications for the house.
The builder takes a look at the plans,
and he sees that it calls for everything in the house
to be top-of-the-line, top quality materials,
it was going to be an amazing house.
But the builder got kind of frustrated, and says,
you know, I’ve worked for this contractor for 30 years,
and he’s always paid me,
but he’s never done anything special for me,
And now I’m getting ready to retire,
this is my last house to build,
I’m just gonna cut some corners here and there,
So he didn’t build the foundation correctly,
he didn’t set the pillars exactly right,
he used substandard materials throughout,
and did kind of a rush job,
Then he lets the contractor know that its done.
At which point the contractor threw him the keys,
and said,
Thank you for all you’ve done for me
all of these years,
this house is for you,
you were building your own house the whole time.
Now you have an amazing house
to live in during retirement.
All the sudden the builder realizes that,
all the shortcuts he took,
all the problems he covered over,
all the corners he cut,
he realized that
he was going to have to live in this house,
the rest of his life.
Did you know that you’re building a house with your life?
Jesus told a story about it,
he talked about two builders,
one built his house on a firm foundation of rock,
but one built on the shifting sands.
Jesus says,
that each of us are building a house, with our lives,
so build it well,
don’t build it on shifting sands,
you don’t want it to collapse around you
when the storms come,
Build on a firm foundation,
don’t live a lie, do it right,
follow God wholeheartedly,
serve him diligently,
build your house well.
Lets keep going with our story…
26 Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work."
28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. 29 Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her attendant. 30 Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
Just a quick note here:
When Jacob worked for Leah,
he first worked 7 years
and then got his bride.
When Jacob worked for Rachel,
he got his bride,
and then worked the next 7 years.
Why does this matter?
Leah is a picture of the law and religion,
which says, if you work really hard,
and do things right,
then you get God at the end of 7 years,
7 is the number of perfection and completion.
Rachel is a picture of God’s grace and salvation,
that says, you get grace now,
you get God’s favor now,
before you do any work,
you freely receive what Christ did for you,
and then out of gratitude and love for what he did for you,
you work 7 years and it seems like only a few days
because you love God so much.
This is the huge difference, between religion,
and following Christ.
You don’t serve God because you got to,
you serve God because you get to,
it’s a privilege that comes out of love not law,
out of grace not guilt.
Now before we continue the story,
I want you to notice two words on your outline…
Approval, and Achievement.
Those are two key words for the remainder of this story.
And those are also two words
that drive most of our lives,
without us even realizing we’re being driven by them.
Approval, and Achievement.
Leah was driven by approval,
because she felt unloved, and unwanted.
Verse 31
When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.
Aren’t you glad that God sees unloved people,
and he actually pays special attention to them.
When the Lord saw that Leah was
unloved, and rejected,
and crying herself to sleep at night,
because she knew that she was the unwanted one,
it says that God took special action on her behalf.
because God selects what man rejects.
Did you know that?
God selects what people reject.
I want to take a moment to speak to every unloved Leah here,
and we’re not just talking about women,
we’re talking about anyone who’s known
the pain of being rejected,
the pain of being unwanted at times,
the pain of kids who grew up without a dad,
because the dad decided it wasn’t worth it to stay around,
the pain of someone rejected in a marriage,
whose spouse was unfaithful or unloving,
The pain of someone rejected by friends at school or at work,
The pain of someone who doesn’t get asked out all the time,
The pain of someone who feels like
the room doesn’t light up, when you enter,
For all of you, I want you to know that
God has this way of selecting
the ones that people end up rejecting.
When God saw that Jacob didn’t want Leah,
He said, I want Leah.
And so God said, I’m going to enable her to do something
that her beautiful sister can’t do,
because I am the God who selects what others reject.
I am the God who will make the most of a situation
that other people have given up on,
I am the God of the widow and the orphan,
I am the God who selects the rejected.
I am the God who chooses the unchosen,
I am the God for lonely, unloved Leah,
wondering when is my time,
God says I see you Leah,
I see your loneliness,
I see you being skipped over and left out,
I see you Leah, and I know Jacob doesn’t love you,
but Jacob doesn’t even like himself,
Jacob is a fool,
and if he knew what was in you Leah,
he’d choose you too.
So Jacob doesn’t love you Leah,
but God says,
I do love you, and I choose you Leah.
The truth is,
all of us deal with rejection from time to time.
Do you know what rejection really is?
Its not a dead end, it’s a redirection.
When people reject you
it’s a sign that
they weren’t the right one for you anyway.
When groups of people reject you,
its sometimes a sign that they’re flying too low,
and you don’t have any business at their altitude anyway,
God is taking you higher,
because He has something better waiting for you.
God wants you to know today,
you are chosen,
You are God’s first round draft pick,
you’re chosen.
Just like Leah was chosen.
Yet though Leah was chosen by God,
she still felt like she needed to prove herself to people…
32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, "It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now."
I wonder who you’re trying to get to love you today,
by something you can produce?
Apparently that didn’t work for Leah, because…
Verse 33
She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too." So she named him Simeon.
Simeon means, the Lord Hears.
34 Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." So he was named Levi.
35 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "This time I will praise the Lord." So she named him Judah.
Judah means, Praise.
Then she stopped having children.
at least for a minute.
What we see in Leah
is a picture of so many lives,
producing things that we hope will win us approval.
Let me tell you,
Until God is enough for you,
nothing else will ever be enough for you.
Leah is popping out babies like Michelle Dugger,
and still can’t get Jacob’s attention.
You can accomplish all kinds of things,
you can get straight A’s,
get the best job,
make the most money,
buy the best things,
achieve everything you thought you wanted,
and its all great,
but it will never be enough.
There comes a time when
you have to just praise God
for who he made you to be.
Otherwise it will never be enough.
Its not even enough for those who seem to have it all.
You would assume that Rachel,
who is beautiful and wanted and loved,
would be happy.
But look at what it says next.
Verse 30
When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I'll die!"
You notice something here?
Both sisters are miserable.
One with weak eyes, one with a hot body,
and both miserable.
2 Jacob became angry with her and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?"
In other words, its not fault,
my stuff is working fine,
just look at Leah.
I just shocked a few of the religious people here.
Did you hear what Ken said in church?
So Leah has got the achievement but not the approval,
Rachel has got the approval, but not the achievement.
She’s got the approval, because Jacob loves her,
but she can’t produce what she wants,
so she’s miserable.
Have you discovered that,
many of the people that we’re jealous of,
are miserable on the inside.
The people that in our culture
that we put on a pedestal,
the beautiful people,
the movie stars,
the glamorous people,
are miserable on the inside.
If you’re not careful
you’ll spend your whole life trying to imitate
people who are barren inside.
Just because your life looks beautiful on the outside,
doesn’t mean its fruitful on the inside.
So both sisters are miserable,
because they’re both focused on what they don’t have.
Why are we always focused on what we don’t have,
God was working in both of their lives,
but it wasn’t enough.
Leah was having babies saying
if Jacob would just love me,
if Jacob would just notice me,
if Jacob would just accept me,
then I’d be happy
Rachel is trying to have babies, saying,
if I could just have a son then I’d be happy,
if I could just have a daughter then I’d feel okay about myself,
if I could just do this, or be this,
then I’d be happy.
And God says to them both,
when are you gonna look to me?
Because I am all you need.
I am all you need.
But Rachel can’t accept this, so what does she do?
She tries to help God out a little.
And I’m gonna read through this fast,
to save some time,
but its worse than real housewives of NJ.
3 Then she said, "Here is Bilhah, my servant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her."
4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, 5 and she became pregnant and bore him a son. 6 Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son." Because of this she named him Dan.
7 Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. 8 Then Rachel said, "I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won." So she named him Naphtali.
9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children,
she stopped praising the Lord,
and went back to trying to achieve,
so she can beat her sister,
she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. 10 Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. 11 Then Leah said, "What good fortune!" So she named him Gad.
12 Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. 13 Then Leah said, "How happy I am!
No, I don’t think you are Leah.
You think that more kids is gonna make you happy,
because now you’re ahead of Rachel,
but it never works out that way does it?
The women will call me happy."
By the way, any time you tie your happiness
to another persons appraisal of you,
you’ll never be happy.
Leah’s gone from,
maybe Jacob will love me, to
maybe the other women will see what I’ve done
and appreciate me,
Maybe they’ll call me happy, because of what I achieved,
but then I realize that no amount of achievement,
can really make me happy for the long term.
So she named him Asher.
14 During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants,
mandrake was thought to help with fertility…
which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."
15 But she said to her, "Wasn't it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son's mandrakes too?"
"Very well," Rachel said, "he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son's mandrakes."
16 So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. "You must sleep with me," she said. "I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." So he slept with her that night.
You see all this manipulation?
Maidens and mandrakes,
all representing our own attempts to control our future,
which ultimately only God can control.
But sometimes,
even when we go about it the wrong way,
God has mercy on us anyway.
17 God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18 Then Leah said, "God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband." So she named him Issachar.
19 Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. 20 Then Leah said, "God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne him six sons." So she named him Zebulun.
21 Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.
22 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive.
You see, all the stuff Rachel was doing
trying so hard to achieve,
all the manipulation and maidens and mandrakes
she went through
was all unnecessary in the end.
What she really needed
was simply patience and trust.
Because God finally gave her what she wanted.
And one moment of receiving from God,
outweighs a lifetime of trying to achieve without him.
Some of us here have tried so many different things,
to try to get what we want out of life,
but when you achieve what thought you wanted,
you find out you’re not actually satisfied at all,
Because the only true contentment
comes from God.
23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, "God has taken away my disgrace." 24 She named him Joseph, and said, "May the Lord add to me another son."
We’re going to pick up the story there, next week,
and I believe the last part of this story
is the most powerful of all,
you don’t want to miss next week…
But I kind of wish I could sit down with Leah,
who so badly wanted approval,
and Rachel who so badly wanted to produce,
one was unloved, the other was unfruitful,
one was rejected, the other was frustrated,
but both were miserable and unsatisfied a lot,
And you wish you could tell them the rest of the story.
You see we have the Bible to tells us the rest of the story,
they didn’t have that.
And we could tell Rachel,
you had the approval and love,
but you were so worried about achieving,
well, it turns out you had nothing to worry about.
Your son Joseph, he was one of the greatest
and most godly leaders in the bible,
and he wasn’t the oldest
but he ended up with the birthright,
he got a double portion among his brothers.
So Rachel, you didn’t have anything to worry about,
there was actually no reason for you to be miserable much of your life.
And then we would turn to unloved Leah.
And we’d say to her,
Leah let me show you the book of Matthew,
because Leah, when you see this,
I don’t think you’re gonna feel rejected any more.
Because here’s how Matthew starts out,
Matt 1:1-3
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah…
Wait a minute…
whose son was Judah? Leah’s.
Judah the son of Leah,
who Jacob never even wanted to marry.
And if you keep reading in Matthew,
I’m not gonna read it all, because it’s a really long list,
42 generations worth,
one descendant after another,
but if you skip all the way to verse 16,
there we see another Jacob…
16
and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
Jesus came from the line of Judah,
and Judah came from Leah,
the unloved one, the rejected one,
the one that Jacob never even wanted,
The savior of the world,
was born out of the rejection of the woman,
who was unloved.
And I want to tell you,
if you’re feeling rejected today,
if you’re feeling like a failure today,
God has a plan, to bring forth Jesus in your life.
Out of your rejection, out of your frustration,
Out of your failures,
Out of your defects,
Out of your flaws,
God has a plan for it all,
and he will turn rejection into a blessing.
Leah didn’t know it, but she was chosen.
She was not rejected,
she was not unwanted,
she was chosen.
From her pain, she gave birth to Judah,
a praise,
that will produce the presence of Jesus.
God has a plan for it all,
and when we trust him and follow him,
he will even turn rejection into a blessing.
Lets stand for prayer.
