TOLDOT

“Yitz’chak prayed to Adonai on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. Adonai heeded his prayer, and Rivkah became pregnant.”
Genesis 25:21 CJV


I remember well the first miscarriage that I endured. It was in August of 2000. Just a month before I was looking at a pregnancy test handed to me and trying to make sure I was reading it correctly. The idea of being a father was making me happy. But the joys were short lived. Soon she began to have pains and we found ourselves at the doctor’s office only to find that the baby would not be coming after all. The days that followed the miscarriage went from bad to worse as we worked through an array of emotions, even after just a month of expectancy. Since this time I have had the joy of a son, the pain once again of another loss, and the joy again of a daughter, before becoming the step-father to two more sons. I look at all four children, though, and view them as answers to prayer. It was back in college that I began to have a strong desire to be a dad, and after many prayers I have come to walk out the answer to that prayer.
For Isaac and Rebekah, I feel it might have been the same. Instead of dealing with miscarriage, however, they dealt with a barren womb. The two did not have a chance to date and learn about each other’s past. They didn’t have the ability to learn of one another’s medical past. When they were introduced to each other, following the servant bringing Rebekah back from the homeland, they went into the tent and wed. But now, shortly after, they found themselves in a position where children were not coming. So what was the action taken? Isaac prayed.
Isaac had seen the faith of his father, Abraham. He had seen God work His miracles as he himself had been a miracle. So in learning that the two would be unable to have children, Isaac prayed to God on behalf of his wife and asked that her womb be opened. The word for prayer here is a word implying an entreaty being made. It wasn’t a one-time prayer, but a persistent praying, for what some Rabbi’s believe was a twenty year time frame.
And the part I love, God heeded his prayer. This truth is no different from what Jesus taught in Luke 11. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. After speaking for them the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus then tells the story of a man who knocks on the neighbor’s door during the night for food. It was not the fact that it was his friend that brought him to the door, but the persistence of the neighbor knocking. Therefore He shares with us that if we ask, seek, and knock, then we will have, find, and see doors open (Lk 11:9). This is the persistence Isaac had in his request for his wife’s womb.
In time, Rebekah became pregnant and gave birth to not one child, but two. But I want you to notice something in this fact. The enemy was at work. Abraham had been promised that he would be the father of many. Abraham had in all eight sons. But only one of those sons was the true promised son. And now the true promised son from whom the promise would continue was faced with the fact that his wife was barren. Right there the promise could have ended, the devil could have won, and God could have been named a liar. But, Isaac prayed.
This speaks to me because there have been times when I have been told a promise and only have seen a small portion of it come to pass, if any part at all. It has created in me doubt at first, but also the desire to continue to pray for the completion of the answer. As God is not one who will go back on His word and be made into a liar, it would serve us to do well to pray for the completion of what He has said. There is power in prayer, so let us not forget to lift a prayer up to Him and see what barren places in our life He will also restore.