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Only a few days

A devotion on serving with love

Do you ever get bombarded with a specific Bible verse? To me that is one of God’s unique ways of speaking to me. When I see the same verse from different sources, I can tell the Lord specifically wants to chat with me. This doesn’t happen every day, which is why I hold this Lord’s technique dear to my heart.

This happened recently when I read Genesis 29:20: “So, Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.” 

The first time I read it I did not even process the Scripture. It was just one of the verses included in my reading and that was it. A task to be completed.

When I read it for the second time I thought: “Oh, have I’ve seen this before? Maybe I did.”

Third time, I rolled my eyes, and I thought: “Yeah, what a noble thing, whatever. let’s keep on reading.

Fourth time: “Wait, do I need to reconsider something else about this? Possibly. But what? I’m a loving person too.”

On the fifth time, it hit me: Served seven years, only seemed like a few days, because of his love for her.

To put that time served in another perspective: Seven years = 84 months. He spent 2,555 days investing in this. He waited 61,320 hours to see this come to fruition. All of it because of love, which equivalents to patience, kindness, hope and perseverance, just to mention a few qualities of what love is according to the apostle Paul. 

Not only did Jacob practice faithfully what the Lord intends for us, but he did it in an exceedingly graceful way that the Bible emphasizes that for him it was only like a few days.

One thing I’ve learned about Scripture is that what is mentioned there is not just to fill details but to make us ponder on the reason why it was included.

Sometimes we go through the motions, and we are so used to it that we are numb. We stay in a habit, job, relationship for a long time but not because we love it but because we’ve anesthetized ourselves to become accustomed to that pattern of life. 

There is a huge difference between being totally indifferent of our current situation than feeling like the time goes by so fast because we love what we are doing.

So, my prayer this week is that I learn to love so fervently that when I’m serving days fly by; that anytime I look back at my life I can say it was only like a few days because I loved it.

Hopefully you find yourself in the same position Jacob did as well.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” – 1 Corinthians 15:58

Written by Jemima Martinez, database coordinator for Buckner International.

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