Have you ever felt like a runner up–you know those feelings that come to surface when you feel inferior or just not good enough? Like when your best friend gets accepted to the college that you dreamed of going to and you only get accepted to the community college. Or the time when your little sister got all As on her report card and you had a couple Bs. And what about the moments when you feel like the only girl without a date of Friday night.
You are not alone in these feelings. In fact, a very special woman in the Bible felt this way too. Her name is Leah. Leah was the older sister of the beautiful Rachel. Rachel had it all going for her–beauty, brains, and the perfect guy, Jacob. Jacob worked for Laban (the sister’s father) for seven years in order to marry Rachel, but when it came time for the wedding, Laban tricked Jacob and gave him Leah as his wife instead. You can only imagine how angry Jacob must have been! But his love for Rachel was so ardent that he agreed to work for Laban for another seven years with the promise of Rachel’s hand in marriage. The seven years went by and he was able to marry his beloved Rachel. But what about Leah? She went unnoticed. She begged Jacob for attention and just wanted to be loved by someone–anyone. Her sister was barren for quite some time and Leah saw this as her own advantage to win Jacob’s love. She bore him seven children, yet she still wasn’t satisfied with who she was in Christ.
God chose to bless Leah, yet she was too busy looking into the eyes of a husband who didn’t accept her to even realize it. Jesus Christ loved her more than anything else, yet she ignored Him and focused on what she couldn’t have. How often do we do that in our own lives? Instead of focusing our eyes on Jesus and His amazing love for us, we focus on those cute clothes that we can’t afford or that dream of popularity that just isn’t working out. Doesn’t it seem like we are always focusing on the negative rather than the positive? If we would just change our mindset, then we could change our entire outlook and the way that we live our lives. If Leah would have stopped and thought about how God had blessed her with seven healthy kids, maybe she could have enjoyed her life and had a good relationship with her sister instead of constantly manipulating those around her.
There are so many astounding truths about Leah, it would take a whole book to explain them all–you know what, there is a book! Check out Shannon Primicerio’s book Leah: Confessions of a First Runner-Up to get the whole scoop and discover the freedom that you van have in Christ.
