The New Year always brings about one thing in our cultural mind, resolutions. There are so many. Lists can vary from one thing, to seventy-two things, and can include the likes of, setting goals, reading a book, working out, creating a balance between aspects of one’s life, save money, invest, volunteer, sleep more, sleep less, create a routine, and on and on.
I really don’t ascribe to resolutions, not because there necessarily a bad thing, but because I don’t really stick with them. In fact, I think the longer the list, the less likely you are to accomplish it, and then the more likely you are to feel bad and quit. So what I’ve done in my life is try one thing. Last year was spending more time playing with my kids. This year it’s spending more time on the gun range. Though there is overlap and differences between resolutions, they do have one thing in common, an attempt to make one’s life better.
But New Year’s isn’t just about reevaluating what we want out of this life to make it better, as a follower of Jesus, it should give us an opportunity to think about how to improve our relationships with our Savior. This can be done by reading through the Bible in a year, starting a new devotional book, or something like it.
Whatever it is, I think doing one or focusing on one thing is a good place to start. A verse that has been brought to my mind for the last several years in thinking about my relationship with God, is from Isaiah 49:2. It reads, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.” You might have heard me reference this verse every once an a while. A polished arrow is a sharpened arrow. It means that it has been sharpened by the archer for the purpose of use at an appointed time. Until that time, when the arrow will be taken from the quiver, knocked on the bow string, and sent sailing through the air, the arrow waits in the archer’s quiver.
As Jesus’ disciple I want to be a sharpened arrow in my God’s quiver. Ready to be used whenever he deems me ready. So for the next four weeks we’re going to look at four people of the Bible and see how they were or weren’t ready for the work that God tasked them with. How they were either sharp arrows in the quiver of God, or not. So if you have your Bibles, we’re goin to kick off this resolution of being a ready arrow of God by starting in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, chapter 24, starting in verse 1.
And as we do, let’s bring ourselves up to speed on where we find ourselves in the Scriptures today.
12 chapters earlier God had begun a specific work in the family of Abraham. He called this man and his family away from his life in the town of Haran to travel to the land of Canaan. God promised Abraham a son in his old age and eventually gave him Issac. Through the ups and downs of Abraham’s life, we come to this point as he is facing his final days.
Let’s read together Genesis 24:1.
1 Abraham was now very old, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. 2 He said to the senior servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh. 3 I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, 4 but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
5 The servant asked him, “What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?”
6 “Make sure that you do not take my son back there,” Abraham said. 7 “The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—he will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. 8 If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there.” 9 So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.
10 Then the servant left, taking with him ten of his master’s camels loaded with all kinds of good things from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim and made his way to the town of Nahor. 11 He had the camels kneel down near the well outside the town; it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water.
12 Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. 16 The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.
17 The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.”
18 “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink.
19 After she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have had enough to drink.” 20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels. 21 Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful.
22 When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels. 23 Then he asked, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”
24 She answered him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son that Milkah bore to Nahor.” 25 And she added, “We have plenty of straw and fodder, as well as room for you to spend the night.”
26 Then the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord, 27 saying, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”
28 The young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things.
Stories about the lives of Abraham and Issac tend to overshadow the life of this simple servant who was tasked to get his master’s son a wife. So who was this servant that was tasked with this job? We find out that this is most likely the same servant that was mentioned nine chapters earlier. His name is Eliezer (el -e-a-zor) and he’s from the land of Damascus. At one point he was the inheritor of all of Abraham’s wealth, that is, until Issac was born. Which gives you a little insight into who this servant was. He faithfully served Abraham to the point that he was the first in line to receive his master’s estate if his master had no biological heir. Yet, even though Abraham eventually had an heir in Issac, which meant the servant no longer would gain Abraham’s estate, he was still trusted by his master to help continue his lineage.
And this is the first of three attributes in this servant’s life that point us to being a sharpened arrow in our God’s quiver. This servant cared more for his master, then he did for what could be gained.
What is heaven like? What crown will I have? What jewels, what mansion will be mine? These are questions of the skewed heart. As a ready arrow in our God’s quiver, the things that we may gain in our relationship with God, are secondary to who we serve. This is why in the book of Revelation chapter 4 verse 10, it reads “…the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say, ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.’” These twenty-four elders come off their thrones, bend down, and lay their crowns down in front of God, because God is more important than the thrones or crowns they have. A true servant of God, is one who loves God, not for what they gain from him, but for who he is.
This leads us back to the passage where we see our two other attributes.
In the opening of Abraham calling on his servant to find his son a wife, he asks him to put his hand on his thigh. This might sound weird to us, but it was a very personal covenant that Abraham was asking for. This wasn’t a peace treaty, this wasn’t a property rights thing, this was a father asking his most trusted servant to embark on a very important mission for his son. The closeness of the thigh in this covenant made it a personal mission. Since we know who this servant was, a man who loved his master more than wealth, we know how close their relationship was. This is a master who trusted his servant, and a servant who loved his master.
So when we come to verse 5, the question about bringing the son to the the woman comes from a place of wanting to know his master’s thoughts on every possible situation.
And this is the second attribute that we need to notice, the servant clarifies the master’s orders out of a desire to serve the master’s purpose. This is something that would happen again and again throughout the Scriptures. Moses, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, and more would seek to inquire of God for the accomplishment of his purposes in their lives. In fact the first time we see this inquiry language used in the Scriptures, is of Rebekah in the next chapter. If we are to be ready arrows in God’s quiver, we must be seeking the will of our Master. We must inquire of him with a ready heart for action. God has a desire that we would seek his will to accomplish his task.
We see this again in verse 12, when the servant seeks the aid of God to know the specific girl he should be seeking. It’s why Jesus says in places like Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” We are to be ever seeking our God’s will and purpose.
The final attribute comes in verse 26. The servant has been faithful in caring more for his master than for himself and has also sought the purpose and will of his master. It’s then that he meets Rebekah. She is exactly what he had sought God about. She gave him and his camels water to drink and to top it off, she was from the extended family of his master, just as Abraham had requested.
In response to these things, we’re told that the servant worship God. Blessing the Lord and recognizing how he has been faithful to Abraham through this whole journey. And it’s in the recognization of God’s work that we see the final attribute that we are to have as well, we are to be every recognizing and giving God the praise that is due him.
This is why the writer of proverbs penned these words, “5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths (3:5-6).”
Acknowledging God’s work helps us realize that it’s him that accomplishes things in our lives. When we recognize that he is at work, it helps us to not only stay humble in thanksgiving, but also aware of his work around us. If we are not able to recognize God’s work when it is in direct response to prayer, then we’ll never be able to see his work when he does it without our direct input.
But when we do acknowledge God’s work, then the path he has for us becomes clearer and we quickly move where he wants us to go.
It’s in the life of Abraham’s servant that we can see what it means to be a ready arrow in the quiver of God, and that’s a focus on God. The servant loved his master more than himself, he was interested in his master’s will not his own, and he worshiped his master’s God because he knew it wasn’t him that found the girl.
As believer’s this is what we need in our lives, a focus on God that wants him more than what can be gained from him, that seeks his will over our own, and praises him for what he accomplishes in our lives.
An arrow’s job is to do as the archer desires, and so it should be for the Christian’s life. This arrow’s (me) job is to accomplish the Archer’s purpose.
My challenge for you this week is to take the picture in your bulletins of the arrow and target, color if you’d like, but to post it at the front of your door, so that in the morning as you leave your home your mind is on the Archer’s purpose.
Let us look to this new year as arrows ready, because we love God more than ourselves, we seek his will above our own, and we recognize that it is him that accomplish all things. Amen.
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