I Must Have It

When Rachel saw that she wasn’t having any children for Jacob, she became jealous of her sister. She pleaded with Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” Genesis 30:1

WE THINK WE KNOW what we must have to be happy. Jacob was convinced he had to have Rachel to be happy, so much so that he was willing to work another seven years to get to marry her after Laban tricked him into marrying her older sister, Leah. Leah was convinced she had to have her husband’s love to be happy, so she kept giving him more sons, hoping they would turn his heart toward her. But Rachel was the one who came right out with it. She was convinced that if she did not have the family she desired, she would die.

As much joy as family can bring into our lives, if our contentment is dependent on having the family we think we must have to be happy, we’ll never be happy. Our idolatry will warp our expectations and interactions. Family simply can’t bear the weight of being the primary source of our happiness. The truth is, anything about which we say “I must have this to be happy” is an idol. And idols never deliver what we hope they will. They enslave rather than provide. They disappoint rather than deliver.

Lord, protect us from staking our happiness on our children. You are the center and source of our happiness. You are the only thing we must have or else we will die. So we will not insist that we have a certain number of children or that the children we have must be healthy or smart or successful. Our happiness will not be dependent on our children’s saintliness or sinfulness, on the lifestyle they choose or their willingness to change. Our meaning in life and significance in this world don’t come from the family we create or anything else. You provide the only meaning and significance that last.