Well, the conference is officially over 🙁 but it is just the beginning!! 🙂

Because we don’t have an evening service at our church, on Sunday night we were able to join another church to hear one of the speakers again from the week. Francois Botes spoke and the title of his message was, “The Birth of Praise”.

He used the story in Genesis 29:16-35 about Laban, Jacob, Leah & Rachel to describe a very real, very today message.

In a nutshell… Rachel represents the beautiful dream / destiny God has for us and Leah represents life & things in that life we don’t ask for, never planned for & possibly don’t even enjoy, the things in life that make us weary while we’re on our journey. We are Jacob.

God gives us a picture and shows us the Rachel of our lives (the dream / destiny / calling He has for us) so we work towards her but along the way, as they say, “life happens”! Things in that life can make us weary i.e. your jobs, your family, your church, your day to day life… etc. come up and tire us out, Leah actually means “weary” or “weak”.

The amazing thing about Leah… she bore children for Jacob immediately – Rachel did not until Jacob made peace with Leah, (many many years later and after Jacob had many children with Leah, her servant & with Rachel’s servant).

The first 4 children born to Leah & Jacob represent many things that God wants to be birthed in our own lives and they can only come from the journey to Rachel – during the days of Leah.

*1st son was Reuben, which means “to see”
*2nd son was Simeon, which means “to hear”
*3rd son was Levi, which means “to be joined to/companion”
*4th son was Judah, which means “praise”

Sometimes in life we know our Rachel is there, we’ve been shown her, others have prophesied and confirmed that she is there and we want that now but we end up with a Leah, a life that is taking too long to get to Rachel – the prize. Some people give up on working/reaching for her because they hate Leah so much or they know they’re talented and have an incredible calling on their life but aren’t willing to build the character first i.e. they’re too anointed to clean the toilets or teach Sunday school… (this applies to much more)

The speaker told us of his own experience, he knew he was a called Prophet of God – it had been confirmed many times but as soon as churches knew he was a musician… he was asked to play the piano. The thoughts came, “But don’t you know what God’s called me to be” over and over again. He left that church for another thinking they would recognize his Rachel but he was “demoted” to playing for the Children’s church time. This is not what he thought he’d be doing, this was his Leah years… he needed to learn to love his Leah before God could release his Rachel.

We’ve all got a Leah (or two or three) in our lives…

What many don’t realize is… Leah gave Jacob something that Rachel couldn’t – right away. It’s in the journey that we learn to see God and to see us doing what God’s called us to do, to hear His voice and to be joined to the Lord and not just the dream/destiny and finally that we praise Him in the good, the bad and the ugly moments in our life and in our journey.

Until you make peace with Leah… Rachel will be barren.

It wasn’t until Judah was born that Rachel envied Leah and wanted what she had. When we get to the stage where true praise is birthed in and out of our lives… others will have a godly envy and want what we have.

Learn to love your Leah! Be found faithful with her until your Rachel comes!