"Ewe" Focusing on Rachel

By Odon Bulamba

Once again we are facing a new year coming and 2017 is vanishing and coming to an end.  If days can end, if months can pass by, do you also think about our own lives ending one day?  Normally we don’t.  We go to bed tell people, “I’ll see you tomorrow”.  We tell people, “I’ll see you after work”.  We don’t know if we will see people tomorrow or make it to our appointments because our time is passing and the more we are alive the closer we come to death and the return of Jesus.

What does the morning remind you?  When you sit in church, what do you think about?  Preparing your soul for Jesus?  Or yourself because you are going to die soon.  You can’t bribe death or ask it to wait. 

Why am I saying this?  Because I have to share with you about the God of Rachael.  When we talk about the God of Jacob, we also see the God of Rachael.  Rachael was so beautiful and was the first woman in the Bible to be declared beautiful.  Her name means “Ewe”, a female sheep.  Rachael was the first person to be named after an animal.  Imagine being named dog or pig?  How will you feel? Embarrassed.  “Hey, Mrs Cow”.  You will want to change your name.  “People are mocking me, I need to change this name”.

My son’s middle name is Brown and at school people would mock him by touching his skin and saying, brown and running away.  It was a mockery because of his colour skin.  When we are given a name that doesn’t match who we are, we are very often offended.  Rachael did not have a choice in her name, her father decided what she would be named.  Poor baby growing up being called female sheep.  However, that name has a meaning and that meaning was not useless.

Genesis 29:6, you can see Rachael coming with sheep.  She was the first female to be a shepherd and to look after sheep.  A mother of the sheep because she knew how to take care of them.  Male sheep have been talked about in the Bible, male sheep will be sacrificed and Jesus was referred to as a male sheep.  Rachael is the only place where the Bible talks about the female sheep.

Characteristics of Rachael is seen in her role as a shepherd.  Imagine someone gives you a flock of sheep.  Will you be able to look after 50 sheep?  You need skills and you can’t just collect those skills from trees, you have to train yourself with patience, endurance, perseverance because sheep don’t listen to human beings so you have to train them.  Sheep are not easy to look after.  Rachael gave her whole life to look after the sheep.

Nowadays we are lucky because farms have fences and dogs to help guide the sheep but around the time of Rachael, they didn’t have that.  Rachael had to run left, turn around, stop there.  Sometimes you can talk to sheep and they don’t listen.  Sheep can go in the opposite direction.  Having 100 sheep as a female, you can imagine how hard it was.  She will climb mountains, find green grass and water for the animals and she was the midwife to assist them giving birth.

Rachael loved what she was doing.  Do you love what you are doing?  When you do a job that is not yours (females are not supposed to be shepherds in those days), how do you feel?  Rachael’s brothers and father were just watching her.

One day Rachael found Jacob at the well and took him home to meet her parents.  She was promised to marry Jacob after 7 years.  She was there waiting for seven years for Jacob and then her father (Laban) gave her sister instead.  Not the Rachael that you love Jacob or the one who is waiting for you.  On the day of marriage, Rachael was shocked to find her father giving her sister first.  “Hey daddy, I am the one who brought him home, I came with him here and you accepted and promised he would marry me.  I have waited seven years and didn’t take any other man and you take him and give him to my sister”.

The Bible doesn’t say that Rachael complained.  It sounds like she agreed with the decision of her father and understood that it was fair.  How many times in your life have you come across a situation when you know it is yours and you have worked hard to gain it and waited so long for it and someone else destroys it or gives it away or doesn’t hold onto the promise to you. We call it disappointment, embarrassment and deception.

Rachael decided to stay with her family.  When God brings pressure in your family and you have been working hard and expect results but God doesn’t give it to you yet or changes the whole program are you able to stay in that situation?  You see someone who is weak and doesn’t try hard and God blesses them with everything.  You who work hard don’t have a small piece of land while others don’t work at all get a house.  Some who are intelligent can’t find a job and those who are stupid can find work.  Those who are lazy get children while those that work hard, can’t find children.

I saw a man who was rich talk to people and people offered him more things while no one wants to help beggars on the street.  When we need something and someone else takes it from us or it is given to someone else, what should we do?  If I were Rachael, I will say, “I will not look after your sheep anymore and I will move out of your family because I don’t know if you really love me”.  Rachael understood she was growing old and time was moving on. 

e.g. Kiara keeps growing and Shari her mother can’t stop her from growing.  She will keep growing mentally and physically and after some years, she will say I’m getting married now, I’m going to live somewhere else.  Regardless of how much you hold her in your heart, she will go.  The child who listened to you yesterday and couldn’t say no, will today say, “No, what you want to do dad is not correct”.  They will engage in a discussion with you and resist your proposition because they believe they are mature now and defend themselves.

Rachael didn’t want to defend herself.  She was mature and strong physically and mentally but she decided to listen to the voice of her father.  Same as Jesus, when it was time to be crucified.  Peter intervened and cut off someone’s ear but Jesus put the ear back on and said, “I have to let this happen”.  Rachael did the same, “I agree with you dad and allow my sister to take the opportunity first”.  7 years later Rachael accepted to be married to Jacob. 

Racheal is a lady who is a shepherd with the name of female sheep.  What is a female sheep compared to a male sheep?  Female sheep produce babies and know what it is to carry a baby sheep in their womb and they will suffer but protect that baby and they are gentle, kind and don’t fight all the time.  They can make noise but less noisy than the male sheep.

Rachael had something unique which was her beauty.  When the Bible says you are beautiful, then you are really beautiful.  Regardless of her beauty, she accepted to take care of the sheep.  Many beautiful girls today prefer to be models but to look after sheep, they will not accept.  “Looking after myself is more important.  When I look at my beauty, I can’t see myself running after sheep.” These women cut some parts of their life off.

We very often talk about the natural gifts God gives to us.  Rachael had two: (1) beauty that attracted Jacob and (2) natural skills of being a shepherd.  What do you have in your life to attract your husband Jesus to you? Maybe you have it and don’t recognise it.  We are saved by grace, Jesus has chosen us first and we are not the one who chose Him.  He saw something attractive we have and came after it, “I want to be your Lord, I want to be your saviour, your husband, your Jesus”.  Privilege that many religious people do not have.

When we are chosen by someone to marry us, we normally don’t think twice but do we know how lucky and blessed we are to be chosen by God from the millions of people surrounding us.  Many men can’t find a women to marry.  In some countries, when a woman is pregnant a man will give money to the woman’s family so he can marry the child once she grows up.  The family will take the money and the man will keep checking on the progress of the baby and if the baby will be a girl, it will be a big party.  The baby has no choice and the man will be old waiting for the child to grow up.

When the child turns 12, the man will request the child now.  You can see those marriages have been there for years and Jesus who is our saviour, He wants us to be mature first.  He comes to find us.  Since we were born, He knew we would belong to Him but He waits for us to grow first.

Rachael with all her beauty and skills made Jacob to love her more.  What fruit do you hold?  The Bible tells us that we need spiritual fruit.  Gal 5 talks about the fruit of the flesh and then added the fruit of the spirit.  Those with the fruit of flesh may not see the kingdom of God but those with the fruit of spirit may inherit that kingdom. 

Can you see fruit without a tree?  Even if you go to Pak ‘n Save to get fruit, you have to think about the trees that produced that fruit.  Without a tree, you cannot get fruit.  The tree doesn’t grow in space but in soil.  The tree pushes its roots in the soil which has elements that feed the tree.  We cannot hold the fruit of the Holy Spirit without having the tree or soil or nutritional elements.

Rachael understood this formula.  Jesus wants us to find the tree of those fruits.  Jesus said, “I am the tree and you are the branches”.  Branches grow the fruit.  The small branches hold the fruit and they want to break as the fruit grows weak.  If you are weak in the Lord, you can produce better fruit.  You can see a fruit growing bigger and bigger from a small branch but the branch continues to hold on it because through Jesus, it will feed humanity.

Trees produce fruit to feed human beings and it won’t be there for one day or ten days but can be there for months waiting to mature.  How long does it take for a kiwifruit for the first day you see it until you can eat it to mature?  Oranges don’t grow orange straight away but they start green and are small.  If you eat it while green it will be sour and won’t taste good.  You need to allow the sun to hit the fruit for days and the colour of the fruit will change from green to yellow and then to orange and then it will be ready to eat.

If you don’t harvest the fruit, it will rot.  Birds can eat it or bats or it will fall on its own.  God gives to us the fruit of the Holy Spirit and we have to hold onto them seriously and feed them the same way that Rachael fed the sheep and look after them.  Wherever they go, we are there and where we go, they come with us.  If I offer to someone tamarillo that is green, you won’t eat it.  It is your work to make your gift of the Holy Spirit to become mature.  If you don’t feed your gift, don’t expect God to do that job for you.  It’s up to you to hold the fruit.

A branch that doesn’t produce fruit will be cut off and put into the fire.  If you don’t produce fruit, God will cut you off and you will end up in fire.  Rachael knew that after 7 years, maybe my master (my father) has seen that I am not ready yet for producing.  She accepted Leah to take her husband.  When she was married, she started to put everything into practice.  She gave birth to 2 boys, joseph and Benjamin. In the same way, it is time for us to work for our family and produce something important to the church.

We all remember Joseph and Benjamin from the Bible but we don’t remember some of the other tribes.  Racheal looked after her two boys well.  You can have only 2 gifts in your life but you need to train them because your neighbours, your work colleagues, your family will benefit from your fruit.  E.g. kindness, you should not limit that to only your family but to everybody.  Even love, you don’t have to only love your children but every one including your enemies. 

I must make my gift to mature so the rest of the world can consume it.  Rachael was so kind and patient.  She accepted Leah to take her husband and she continued to be kind and respect Leah and was gentle and accepted to share her husband with Leah.  Today, no one will accept it but Rachael knew there was a time for everything, “God allowed this and I accept this to happen”.

There is a time to be born and a time to die.  You were born and it was a good day with everyone was happy to welcome you in the family but now you are by your own.  God took my dad when I was 10 years old so he could also take me.  I have to get ready and what I will take to God will be the fruit of my work.

Jesus will ask you, “I gave you 6 gifts, what did you do with them?”  You may answer, “I only recognised 2 God” or “I didn’t have time to use them all”.  He will take them away from you, “you are a bad servant, get out”.  To be a good servant is to commit yourself to what you have.  At work you sign a contract with your employer.  You are bound by that contract and you must work and respect the rules of the contract.

The God of Rachael is teaching us that He can give to you any skill that may be different to others.  E.g. you can become a shepherd as a woman.  Don’t turn down God’s gift because you are different to others.  Try to be the way that God wanted you to be.  Use your skills without doubt.  The more you use them, the more you become familiar with them and let others benefit from what you produce. 

Our next meeting to talk about the judgment of God. How is God going to judge you? When the judge enters the court, everyone stands and bows and judge listens to both sides and his words can send you to jail or give you freedom to be successful or failure.  Judgement is coming and no one will stop it and the only medicine to win is to know the law and put it into practice.