Episode 195: How to Make Wise Decisions: A Genesis 24 Blueprint

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Today Counts Show Episode 195

Preview

Jim: One of the questions I ask myself is, before big decisions, how clear am I about what I will and will not compromise on? What kind of decisions are you making in your life about this next chapter in your life? And you’re establishing rules for how you will make the decisions, what decision you will make, what decision you won’t make, and when. Do I actually pause to pray and listen before acting, or do I just say that? That really freed me. It really helped me.

What he said is that God is always at work. There’s two kinds of ways to go about things. You either pick something that you decide that you’re going to do and then ask God to bless it, or–

Appreciation of our Supporters

Winston:  Hey, before we jump into the podcast, we want to thank all our donors and supporters who make the Today Count Show possible. It’s through your generosity that we’re able to shape leaders through this content and this podcast. And be sure to like, subscribe, and follow wherever you find yourself coming across this content. All right, let’s get to the podcast.

The Genesis Project and Abraham’s Covenant

Jim: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Today Count Show. This is your host, Jim Piper. You have landed on the Genesis Project. Out of fun, I don’t know if it’s actually going to be titled this way, but “Shopping for a Wife on Amazon” would be a fun title to Genesis chapter 24. But let’s back up for just a minute.

Looks like I’m going solo today. My three partners, for whatever reason, could not make it today. I will miss them very much. Hopefully, you will not get tired of hearing my voice. We’re in Genesis chapter 24. This is the Genesis Project. It is a theme, a thread, a theme inside of the Today Count Show, and we started in Genesis chapter 1, and we’re going to go all the way through the end of Genesis, which would be Genesis chapter 50.

Now, so far, just to catch you up, we have been introduced to these persons called Adam and Eve. And as time went on, we were introduced to Noah. From Noah, we were introduced to this man that we call a patriarch, Abraham. Just like Adam and just like Noah, God, according to Scripture, had created a covenant with Abraham. To put it in short order, his covenant was that he was going to bless Abraham, and he was going to bless the generations that would come after him and make them a great nation.

From a theological perspective, what we understand that to mean is that God is constantly revealing himself to mankind. He’s done it through creation, and he’s done it working through various human beings throughout time, and certainly not the least of these would be the nation of Israel. So God chose Abraham as his agent to continue the revelation of God to the human race.

The Story of Isaac and Rebekah

Now at this point, Abraham has lost his dear wife, Sarah. They’ve been through a lot together. They’ve done some tremendous things well together, and they’ve also, like us, made mistakes together. But here they are in their elderly years. Sarah has died. Abraham has buried Sarah. And what we see now in chapter 24 is that Abraham is exercising, he’s cooperating with, this covenant that God made to him and through him. That’s something for us to pause and think about already.

The day in which we live today, whether you realize it or not, through Christ, God has made a covenant to you and to me, the New Testament, the new covenant. And it is all done through Jesus Christ. Now there are some people who believe in that theoretically, abstractly, but they are not exercising faith in that covenant. And as a result, they do not experience what God intends for us to experience, in spite of the fact that the world is in a lot of trouble.

Approach to Genesis Chapter 24

All right. So what I’m going to do is I’m not going to read through Genesis 24 this time. It’s a lengthy chapter, but I’m going to talk through it. And then there’s some questions that I’ve asked myself that I’m going to turn around and ask you through this study.

So as I said, in Genesis chapter 24, the last page has turned in Sarah’s life. She is now buried by her husband Abraham. And now Abraham begins to look towards the future. So though we’ve been introduced to Abraham, now we’re being introduced to Isaac in a much more thorough patriarchal way, that the covenant was going to continue to be exercised through Isaac. However, Isaac does not have a bride.

Abraham’s Instructions to His Servant

And so what Abraham does is he calls his servant to himself, and he tells his servant that under no circumstances does he want Isaac to marry. Now this is a different day, different culture, where parents had everything to say about who somebody was going to marry. Not to say that parents don’t have influence today, but it’s just a completely different culture.

So Abraham, living in Canaan, did not want Isaac to co-mingle, to intermarry with the Canaanites. So he pulled his servant aside. He said, “I’m going to send you to my homeland, and I’m going to send you there to find Isaac’s wife.” Now that’s a pretty big assignment. He sent this servant off with camels that carried all kinds of treasures and luxuries and necessities, along with camel drivers, people who were joining this servant, and they went off to their homeland.

The Covenant Between Abraham and the Servant

When they reached the homeland, there was a covenant established between Abraham and the servant, which basically went, you will do this for me until such case my idea was clearly wrong. And then if it’s clearly wrong and there’s no one there for my son Isaac, then okay, the deal’s off. But otherwise, you need to work diligently to bring home his wife from my homeland.

The servant gets to the homeland. He stops at a well for all the camels, and probably themselves, to be renourished. And it’s there that we find him praying to God. And it’s interesting how the Scriptures talk about it. He prays to the God of Abraham. It almost suggests that this servant may not have viewed his relationship with God to be authentic if it’s not happening through the head of Abraham. It doesn’t say that emphatically, but you kind of pick that up. You pick the honoring up in who Abraham is.

Seeking a Sign from God

So he comes up with this idea. He says to God, basically, “Look, I’m going to ask somebody.” I’m going to read between the lines here a bit.” I’m going to look for somebody who I think is attractive, who I think might make a good fit for Isaac’s wife, and then I’m going to ask this woman if she would help give me a drink. And if she does that, and then if she offers to do more than that, I will see that as a sign that this is the one that you are providing for Isaac.”

Have you ever done that before? Have you ever said, all right, you’re trying to make a decision in your life, and so you talk to God and you say, okay, if this happens, I’m going to believe and I’m going to go this way. If it doesn’t happen, I’m going to go that way. That’s kind of what he’s doing there.

Rebekah’s Response and God’s Provision

And then, of course, as we look further into the story, we see this woman who is called very beautiful. Her name is Rebekah. Rebekah not only gives the servant a drink, but volunteers to nourish and take care of the camels and all those that are with them. And then what happens is the servant gives her gifts, bracelets, a nose ring, that kind of thing.

To fast forward, what happens next is that Rebekah and her family invite these men as guests to their home. And they did that because Rebekah went home and told about this. And both of these people are explaining the story, the servant and this woman, with a God view. In other words, they believe that God’s hand was moving, that God was doing something.

The Blackaby Principle: Noticing God at Work

I remember one of my mentors, Dr. Henry Blackaby, in his work Experiencing God, said something that still drives me today. I don’t know about your faith. If you have this faith in God and in Christ, how do you live your life every day based upon that faith in God? How do you know whether you’re walking with God or not?

Well, Henry Blackaby coined a phrase through his content called Experiencing God that really freed me. It really helped me. And basically what he said is that God is always at work. God is always there. There’s two kinds of ways to go about things. You either pick something that you decide that you’re going to do and then ask God to bless it. You’re hoping that it’s the right thing to do, so you ask God to bless it. Or what you can do is notice what God is doing. That God is always up to something.

So if there’s something bad happening in your life or around you, it doesn’t mean that God has left. What if you said, “I wonder what God is doing through this tragedy. I wonder what God is up to in this situation. I wonder how God is going to turn this into good.”

Living with Curiosity About God’s Activity

And so Blackaby’s theology, which, to be honest, has had a huge influence on me and I think those are close to me know that it has actually become incarnate with me, where regardless of what happens, whether it’s good or bad or indifferent, the question that I now ask is, what is God up to? Or I try to notice what I think God is doing. What is God doing in our nation? What is God doing in our culture? What’s God doing in our churches? What is God doing in business? What is God doing in my family? What’s God doing in the life of so-and-so? How is God going to use this for that? Or how is God going to use this to do that? And so I lean in with some curiosity in that situation.

So both the servant and Rebekah are explaining what has happened, and they repeat themselves. The servant explains to the family, “Hey, look, I talked to God. This is what I told God. And look what happened.” And Rebekah then repeats the same story. Look what happened. This must be of God.

And so then the servant makes the big ask. Isaac doesn’t get on his knees and ask Rebekah to marry him. This servant approaches the family and says, “I would like to take this woman back to my master and present Rebekah to Isaac to be his wife.”

So then the story continues where they say, “Okay, we see the hand of God on this. This is an answer to prayer for us and for you, that God would bring two people together.” And it’s kind of hard to deny this, at least that’s how they all saw it.

A Journey of Faith and God’s Provision

But then what the family said was, “We don’t want her to go right away. We want her to spend a week or so with us. And we want to get all of our ducks in a row. We want to have some parties. We want to make this a big deal. Who knows if we’ll ever see you again.”

And then the servant responded, “No, that’s not going to work. It’s kind of like now or never.” And so the family turned to Rebekah and said, “Are you willing to do this? Are you willing to pick up and go?” And she said yes. She was willing to do that. Pretty profound if you ask me. Pretty crazy.

The other part I’ve left out in the story is that Rebekah’s family was in the bloodline of Abraham, which was seen in that day as another sign that God’s hand was at work.

So anyway, they all packed up and they headed back to Canaan. And as they were approaching Canaan, Rebekah noticed this guy in the fields and asked the servant, “Who is that?” And then the introduction is made, because that was Isaac.

And it says in a very romantic and poetic way that Isaac took Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and they became husband and wife.

The last verse in chapter 24 reads this way: “And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and she became his wife. He loved her deeply, and she was a special comfort to him after the death of his mother.”

Story Ad

Winston: There have been seasons in my life where I’ve looked back and I thought, “What was that even about? Did I grow in that season? Did I get better? Am I still stuck in that season?” If you have similar thoughts, I want to introduce you to a book called Story: The Art of Learning from Your Past. This book, written by Jim Piper, shares principles and stories that actually help us get unstuck and step into the future we’ve always wanted. Be sure to stop by leadtodaycommunity.com to grab your copy today.

Leadership Principles: Questions from Genesis 24

Jim: All right. So, as I said in the beginning, so far in the history of mankind, we’ve been introduced to the story of the Garden of Eden, the fall of mankind. We are still dealing with the devastation of the fall. And then mankind was achieving and growing, but in doing that and all their prosperity, they became corrupt again. And so God made a covenant with Noah. There was a flood on the earth, and Noah and his family survived that and, of course, replenished the earth. And that brought us to Abraham’s long life and incredible stories that we’ve already talked about and looked at.

And now, as the sun is setting in his life, it’s kind of like chapter 24 is now introducing Isaac. Of course, what comes after Isaac will be Jacob, and Jacob, of course, his name is changed to Israel. So you kind of see how the march of God continues. And of course, from Israel, or Jacob, we are introduced to Joseph, who rescues his people from slavery in the land of Egypt. And so that’s where Genesis will end. So we’re right in the middle.

Joseph’s story will take a lot of time and is a very fascinating story in itself. Of course, there’s a lot of family dysfunction that we’re going to be exposed to here in the coming chapters.

Leadership Principle of Clarity

All right. So I kind of explained Genesis 24 to you in a story method. So how do we apply this to our lives, particularly as leaders? One of the questions I ask myself before big decisions is, how clear am I about what I will and will not compromise on?

When you look at the first few verses of chapter 24, verses 3 through 8, it’s a conversation between Abraham and his servant where clarity is coming together. You can tell by reading the text that, first of all, there is an oath being made between the two. There is clarification. Basically, what Abraham said is, if you can’t find a wife for Isaac in my homeland, do not find a wife. Under no circumstances may he marry somebody from Canaan.

And when you think about the back and forth here, there’s a leadership principle that I don’t know about you, but I have made this mistake. When I’ve delegated, or when I think I’ve come to an agreement with somebody about how they’re going to carry something out, how clear am I as to the boundaries of that decision, of that task? How clear am I?

And again, I’m asking myself this question before big decisions. How clear am I about what I will and will not compromise on? There is a lot of wisdom in here. And I think we’ve talked about this before, but as a leader, as many decisions as you can make ahead of time, the better. Because when you get into the time of something, your emotions—

Decision-Making Ahead of Emotional Pressure

I just finished a podcast earlier today where I was interviewing a financial advisor an he goes much beyond that, Daryl Lyons, and he made the statement that humans are very emotional beings, and I agree with that. In fact, I think what I threw on top of that is even if we think we’re logical, we’re still very emotional.

So we underestimate what’s waiting for us on the other side, what’s waiting for us around the corner, what’s waiting for us at the negotiating table, what’s waiting for us in this situation. So, for example, not to throw piety all over you, when you start making decisions ahead of time, like what you will say and what you will not say, that the words of your mouth will be this way and not that way, that you will or that you will not strike a deal, but you will give yourself time to contemplate, even if that means that you could lose the deal.

If you get the pressure that if you don’t buy today, then the deal’s off, but if you made a decision ahead of time that regardless of what happens, you will not make that deal, and you have reasons for that that were well thought out before you got into that emotional situation, and you stick to it. So I think, to me, this was confirmation of what I’m learning in my life.

Now, you can’t make all the decisions ahead of time. But what kind of decisions are you making in your life about this next chapter in your life? And you’re going ahead in your mind’s eye, and you’re establishing rules for how you will make the decisions, what decision you will make, what decision you won’t make, and when.

Being Clear Before the Decision

So that’s the first thing that I would share that I got out of this.

Here’s the second question. Do I actually pause to pray and listen before acting, or do I just say that, or do I rely mostly on the fact that I’m going to move forward and rely on my instinct and experience?

I think young people have a tendency to be bullied by the opportunities, to be bullied by the threats, to be bullied by the circumstances. I think that is something for young leaders to consider, that if you begin incorporating prayer in your life, not just talking about prayers for the outcomes, but the really deep prayers, the prayers for wisdom, the prayers for guidance, the prayers for character attributes, love, faith, wisdom, justice, temperance, courage, hope, these kinds of things, to pray for those elements that make us better in every situation.

That’s what I would say to younger leaders. However, I’m not going to let leaders of my age, or around my age, if you’re a 50-some or a 60-some or a 70-some or maybe even an 80-some, and some of your favorite sayings are, “This isn’t my first rodeo,” or “I’ve been around the barn a few times,” all those things that we kind of say, or look at my missing hair, or look at my silver hair or my gray hair, or you can say, “I’ve got all this experience,” etc.

Are we in a place in our lives where we trust our experience more than we trust seeking God out and wanting his presence, asking for his anointing, asking for his insight, asking for his love, asking for his wisdom, asking what I often pray, “Help me see the things that you see. Remove the blindness from my own eyes.” Those kinds of things.

Slowing Down to Pray Instead of Relying on Instinct

All right. So that’s the second. I think that one’s just as big as the first.

I got a couple more. The other thing that I thought about in reading through and studying through Genesis 24 is that when I’m choosing people, do I pay closer attention to what they do or just to what they say?

Now, obviously, I’m referring to Abraham picking his servant. What servant? It doesn’t really tell us which servant, but we know this for sure. He picked the servant he trusted. Now, it could have been his right-hand man, but it doesn’t say it was his right-hand man. But it was certainly somebody he trusted with this.

The Servant’s Initial Perception of Rebekah

But also think about the servant and how he picked out Rebekah. Now, the text doesn’t actually say that the servant saw Rebekah as attractive. I read into that. Later on in the text, it says that Rebekah was attractive. I’m going to read even more into it. She probably wasn’t just attractive. She probably was striking.

When you see a man who is obviously handsome, tall, dark, and handsome, all of which I don’t think I am. I’m not tall. I’m not dark. And if I have any kind of handsomeness, it’s fading rapidly. But those are the kind of guys that turn people’s heads, even guys’ heads, not because of some weird attraction, but simply because. And you might say, well, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Maybe, maybe not. And then there are those that are striking.

So that might have been the first thing that caught the servant’s eyes because he maybe knows Isaac. He might even know the kind of girl that Isaac seemed to be attracted to in the past.

Now, this all may sound very fleshly and worldly to you. God is the inventor of attraction. So let’s embrace that. But that’s not where it ended. The text makes it pretty clear that because he already made these decisions as to who he was going to choose, he paid closer attention to how she responded to his request.

Character Revealed Through Action

If she would have given him a drink and then turned around and left, would he have pursued her? I don’t think so. I think he made it very clear as to what the objectives were and what he was looking for to see that as a sign for God’s hand to be on this potential marriage.

So when I’m choosing people, do I pay closer attention to what I see, what they say, or do I pay close attention to what they do? I believe that in the final analysis, the definition of character is simply what we do. It’s not what we say we believe. It’s not our good intentions. It is literally what we do.

Deciding in Advance What Will Not Be Compromised

So before making big decisions, how clear am I about what I will and will not compromise on? How will I make decisions? Have I established the rules of how I’m even going to make a decision, which we see here in Genesis 24, and that’s making decisions ahead of time?

Then the second thing I asked is, do I actually pause to pray? And then what I did is I kind of challenged the younger leader for sometimes being manipulated by the situation if they don’t pray, if they don’t seek. And then for the more mature leader, I think that we can sometimes rely upon our experience more than a talk with God.

The third question was, when choosing people, do you just look on the outside? Do you look at what they say, or do you watch carefully what they do?

Moving Forward Without Full Certainty

All right. And then here’s the fourth and final one that I have for us today. And this one has to do with Rebekah. You have to remember she doesn’t know who Isaac is. She might have heard of Isaac, maybe even probably, but she didn’t look him up on Instagram or Facebook. There were no photographs that traveled.

And what she does is she believes something in her spirit, which we would believe was God moving in her spirit, that the story that the servant told was true, and it resonated with her, and she was willing to drop everything and go.

So my question to myself is this. Am I willing to take a step forward when God’s direction seems likely but not guaranteed? She didn’t have a guarantee. She didn’t know for sure whether she’d be happy, she didn’t know whether Isaac would treat her well. And she didn’t know whether this guy was actually a bandit. She didn’t know for sure. But she had enough evidence to where she believe that it was time to move forward. That takes faith, and that takes courage.

So Genesis 24 shows us that following God often means being clear on values, slowing down enough to pray, watching how people live, and then moving forward without full certainty.

I want to say that again one more time. Genesis 24 shows us that following God often means being clear on values, slowing down enough to pray, watching how people live, and then moving forward without full certainty.

Outro

Winston: Hey, thank you so much for joining us on the Today Counts Show. We have so much more planned for you. So stay tuned and stay connected on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and subscribe on YouTube. And remember, today counts.
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