I am so thankful for my sons. My wife and I love them more than anything except maybe our three grandsons! We’ve occasionally thought it would have been nice to have had more children. We would have especially wanted a daughter. But, God gave us what God gave us and we’re very grateful for them all. We love to spend time with them! We have great meals and game nights with our family and look forward to them every other week. We are content with the situation God gave us regarding children. God gave Jacob 12 sons and a daughter. The sons are children of four different women. Jacob’s two wives named all 12 of them and when you study the names of each son you see they’re named in competition with the other wife. Without going into the details of each name notice that once Rachel receives the boy born by one of her handmaidens she is overcome with joy and glorifies God. But sadly the name she chooses, Dan ( “vindicated me against my sister” ), taints the gift with a competitive sting, as if God had taken her side to restore her dominance over her sister. But the God who never keeps score, acts once again with gracious abundance, doubling the gift and granting Bilhah another child. To Rachel, winning this last round is the ultimate victory. The boy’s name, Naphtali (“with the wrestling’s of God I have wrestled my sister”), cements her belief that God has permanently taken her side, giving her final victory over her sister. Sadly, it reflects not praise but dominance in her struggle for the coveted “love trophy.” But little does Rachel know that when we compete to prove our worth, it never produces contentment. I’m not sure that Jacob’s example in his competitive life with his brother Esau, spurred along by his mother Rebekah, didn’t help motivate them all, not to mention the strife Jacob had with Laban, his father in law.

After Dinah’s rape and the slaughter of the Shechemites, Jacob (Israel) is afraid for his life. But God appears to him and says “go back to Bethel. Stay there and worship me.” Jacob now convicted of his backsliding calls his family to destroy their idols and moves back to Bethel and builds an altar and worships God. God renews his promises to bless Jacob and his descendants. Then the text says something very profound. In Genesis 35:16 we read, “They left Bethel.” I can’t help but ask why? Bethel means “God’s house” or “the House of God.” Bethel is where man and God can meet. Bethel is where God wanted them. When Jacob was at Bethel he worshipped God. Worship is what God wanted. Nothing but trouble follows Jacob’s family after they leave. Rachel is blessed with another child on the way but then dies in the delivery. Genesis 35:16-18 says, “Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, ‘Do not fear, for you have another son.’  And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.” The family begins to fall apart then. Rachel dies in childbirth; Reuben tries to usurp the leadership of the family by sleeping with one of Jacob’s wives. The other brothers sell Jacob’s beloved Joseph, Judah sleeps with Tamar, and then a famine hits the land and forces them to flee to Egypt.

Who wants more kids?? You never know what you’re gonna get! But I’d take the story a little deeper and ask why did this happen. I think it’s because Jacob left Bethel, the house of God. In other words he left God out of the equation of family life. Jacob with his two wives set a tone that impacted the entire family. The same bad things happened to David. I’m not arguing that any child’s rebellion or failure to live godly lives are to be blamed on the parent. That’s not appropriate nor is it true. But there are still principles of establishing a solid family life that is more conducive to happy living in the home. I think it was Jim Dobson who told this story: “In a recent conversation with a sixth-grade teacher in an upper middle-class California city. She was shocked to see the results of a creative writing task assigned to her students. They were asked to complete a sentence that began with the words, ‘I wish.’ The teacher expected the boys and girls to express wishes for bicycles, dogs, television sets, and trips to Hawaii. Instead, twenty of the thirty children made reference in their responses to their own disintegrating families. A few of their actual sentences were as follows: “‘I wish my parents wouldn’t fight and I wish my father would come back.’ ‘I wish my mother didn’t have a boyfriend.’ ‘I wish I could get straight A’s so my father would love me.’ ‘I wish I had one mom and one dad so the kids wouldn’t make fun of me.’ ‘I wish I had an M-1 rifle so I could shoot those who made fun of me.'” I’m just saying…..