But now, O Lord, thou art our father, we are the clay and thou our potter, and we are all the work of thy hand.
Isaiah 64:8
PRINCIPLE: Be thankful to God for what he made you.
Through the Bible for Children
Lesson #25,Genesis 25:1-34, The Birth of Esau and Jacob Download Craft
After Sarah’s death, Abraham was lonely, and he took another wife. Her name was Keturah. She gave him six sons. Their names were Zimram, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishback, and Shuah. To all his sons that were not the sons of Sarah. Abraham gave gifts. Then he sent them away to live in the east country. But to his son Isaac, the son of promise, Abraham gave the inheritance as God had said, Abraham lived to be one hundred seventy five years, and then he died, in a good old age. He was an old man, and full of years. His son Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, next to his beloved wife Sarah.
Ishmael had many sons, as God had promised to Abraham. But Ishmael and his descendants did not receive what was promised to Isaac, the son that God had promised Abraham and Sarah. It was Isaac who was the son of promise, the one through whom all the earth would be blessed.
Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah for his wife. Rebekah was unable to bear children, so Isaac prayed to the Lord for her. Then the Lord hear Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant.
Rebekah felt as if there were battle going on within her and she asked the Lord what was wrong with her. God told her. “Two nations are within your womb. Two different kinds of people shall be born of you. The one people will be stronger than the other people, and the oldest shall serve the youngest.”
When the time came for Rebekah’s babies to be born, she had twins. The first one born came out red. He was a hairy little fellow, hairy as a goat. So they called his name Esau, for a play on his same means red.
After Esau, his brother came out, and he was grabbing onto Esau, for a play on his name means red.
In Bible times parents often named their children for the character that they saw they had or for circumstances surrounding their birth. So as we study these two boys through the Bible, we will see if the names they were given by their parents truly described what they were like. We know already that God said that the youngest would rule over the oldest. In God’s plan the youngest was to be the head of the family. He was to carry the blessing that was promised to Abraham and Isaac. Even though Esau was born first, and by tradition all the inheritance should be his, God had chosen Jacob to be the son of promise.
We too plan how things will be, but God has his plan, and it is often different from ours. If we went to be happy, we must follow his way and not our own. God owns all, and what he chooses is right. We have no cause to complain or say that God is not fair. For God owes no man anything, and he has the right to choose and use as he will.
Each of us like clay to be made into a pot of God’s choice. He is potter who forms us, and makes us into what pleases him, for his service. The clay has no right to question what the potter decides to do with it, or to say, “I would have rather been something else.” Instead, the clay yields to the potter’s hands, and he makes it into something that useful. We need to accept who we are, and be thankful to God.