When Your gods Need You to Protect Them

Genesis 31:30-35

₃₀And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house, but why did you steal my gods?” ₃₁Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. ₃₂Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our kinsmen point out what I have that is yours, and take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.

₃₃So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find them. And he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s. ₃₄Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent, but did not find them. ₃₅And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the household gods.

(ESV)

Thought:
There is much contained within these chapters about pagan gods. Rachel had decided to steal her father’s idols, possibly for financial gain, seeing it as compensation for how her father treated her, as they would have been worth a fair bit of money. She may have done it to hedge her bets, and show she still wanted to worship her father’s gods. Just in case, Jacob’s God didn’t keep up his end of the bargain, they’d have someone else to turn to.

Jacob has fled from Laban, Laban catches up to them, and demands to have his household gods back. Jacob has no idea what he is speaking of or that Rachel has taken them, she cunningly sits on them and uses her menstruation as an excuse not to get up to greet her father.

Laban has been constantly deceiving Jacob for the last 20 years, doing everything in his strength to wring every advantage he can from using his nephew. But yet through all of it, God prevails over Laban and his gods whom he worships. His wisdom and his gods have been constantly shamed and shown to be powerless and now where are Laban’s gods.

They have essentially become menstrual pads. For whatever reason Rachel chooses to trust in these idols, whether in their value as objects or as representing the gods of her father. But these gods can’t even stop themselves from being sat on by a menstruating woman. It doesn’t sound that nice and back in that day, it would have been incredibly shameful.

But in these stories, God is trying to show us the foolishness of those things that we think will bring us safety or security. When in reality, you will have to be the one who keeps them safe and secure. Money might make you feel secure, but it doesn’t care whose bank account it is in, you have to make it stay securely where you want it.

Your job might make you feel secure, but your job doesn’t care if you get fired, someone else can take your place. You see we put all the effort into making them seem like God, but they are just inanimate things that don’t care about you. And one day they will be as disgusting and as useless as a used menstrual pad.

Reflection:
Choose to place your security in God alone today. Identify any “idol” you’re protecting—money, status, work—and take one step to trust God instead of relying on fragile substitutes.

Prayer:
Lord, keep me from trusting in things that cannot save. Expose the idols I cling to and teach me to rest in Your strength alone. Thank You that You protect me, carry me, and remain faithful when every false security fails. Amen.