Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Fulfilled? | Torah | Genesis 29:14b-30

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

What is your contentment dependent on? Will God make you happy? If you have Jesus, is that enough for you? In today's episode, Tanya looks at Genesis 29:14b-30 to discuss Jacob's discontentment throughout his life. Where do you see discontentment in your life? Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Genesis 29:14b-30 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. I'm not sure if he's really happy. I have no idea if he's a believer or what he believes exactly. But at least in his YouTube video, he looks like a pretty happy guy. He's wearing a loose t-shirt, a straw hat, and he has some sunglasses on top of his head.

He looks like he's getting ready to head out for a surfing lesson. As far as I can tell that, seems like a pretty good way to live. But Justin Kahn says it took some pretty hard mental work to get to that place. He says in his YouTube video that he had to get off the treadmill of thinking, if I could just have X, I'll be happy, which leads to 2x and exponential X's, because there's always more to uncover. And at least in one big way, he did that. Justin Kahn is a software developer, an entrepreneur.

He Yale grad that talks about how to find true happiness. And while you and I might say that's easy for a guy that made a billion, yes, a billion dollars when he sold his company Twitch to Jeff Bezos, there's another side to the story. Kahn and his business partner, Emmett Shear, lucked out when their idea for a calendar app got a $12,000 investment to get wind in its sales. But that bump was just before a big disappointment because Google launched and came out with its own calendar app before Kahn and Shear really got anything substantial going. So they still listed their company on eBay, mostly to get the money back in the hands of their investors.

And again, surprisingly got another bump when it sold for $258,000. Now they had some extra cash and a name. Kahn strapped a camera to his back, attached an analog camera to his computer, and they launched a new idea, a 24-hour web streaming service. It was going just okay, and it was pretty exhausting to have your life on display 24 hours a day. but they realized there could be a market in giving other people the opportunity to live stream. Now, for those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, think of it like a chance to be the star of your own MTV real world episode. The idea kind of took off. They evaluated their analytics and found that their biggest audiences were in the gaming world.

Crazy as it sounds, at least to me, people were fascinated with watching gamers do their gaming, like all day. an internet site where you can watch or stream your own esports experiences. Thus, Twitch was born. And so was a billionaire. But that's where the story takes a turn. Instead of turning yet another startup into an investment that led to an investment, Kahn did something a little unexpected. It almost sounds in the way he describes his life today that the joke is on Jeff Bezos.

See, while Twitch was growing out of control with esports audience, Con was trying to gain back control over his own life. He was doing what he describes as working on his mental strength and personal awareness of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation. Here's what he said about that time. I was always so engrossed with being successful that that was my worth and my identity. And when things weren't going well, I felt like I was worthless.

So I started asking myself, how do I want to be in the world? how do I want to live in the world? So he made a deal and sold a company that by some estimates would have been worth $5 billion to Jeff Bezos for $1 billion. Who do you think was the winner in that deal? And how does that have anything to do with the book of Genesis? Well, mostly humanity has never really changed.

We've always been people who think when I have X, my life will be. be better. And then we get X, or even before we even get X, we've already forgotten about how happy and content we thought we would be when we got it. And Genesis 29 is no exception. All Jacob wanted was his brother's birthright, and he got it. And then all Jacob wanted with his father's blessing, then he got it. Then all Jacob wanted was to make it safely to his uncle Laban's house. So his brother Esau couldn't kill him, and he made it. And all he wanted when he got there was a wife who was not a Canaanite. And he got one. Her name was Leah. But that wasn't the wife he wanted. He actually wanted to marry Rachel. So he worked for Laban for another seven years, and he got her. Was Jacob happy?

Probably not. How do we know? Well, because when Rachel couldn't conceive, she blamed him, and said, give me children, or I shall die. Doesn't sound like a super peaceful marriage, does it? But it makes sense because all Rachel wanted was a child, and then she would be happy. And all Leah, the first wife, wanted was another child, another son that would make Jacob actually love her. And all Laban wanted was control of all this craziness. But somehow, somewhere, somebody was going to have to have to.

to get off the treadmill. This lifestyle, born out of a desire for happiness, was a recipe for misery. As much joy as marriage, children, money, job, security, even pets bring into our lives, if our contentment is dependent on them, we will never be happy. See, we're setting them up to be something they can never live up to. They just simply can't bear the weight of our happiness. But it seems scary, even irresponsible to give up on our pursuits, doesn't it? I mean, if we don't try to get those things, then what becomes of us?

How do we know we're going to be happy? Probably Jacob felt that way. He knew about the Lord's promise to his father and his grandfather to make them into a great nation, to bless all people through them. He encountered God in a dream on his journey into this sister-wife territory where God reminded him in Genesis 28-11, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham and your father, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie,

I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and in you, and your offspring shall be all the families of the earth blessed. See, Jacob wasn't just chasing happiness. He felt like he was personally responsible. to help God fulfill his promises.

And I think therein lies the crux of our own pursuits for happiness. We think it's up to us to help God make us happy. The Bible has a different take on happiness, a better one. Send us on 37-4. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart's desires. See, when we delight ourselves in God, we are never let down or disappointed because he's the only one who can stand up to the weight of our desires. He's the only one who can completely fulfill the statement.

When I get X, I will be content. And it's because he is the healer and the fulfillment of our desires. He heals our misplaced desires. He takes us off the treadmill by giving us new life. Paul describes in Galatians 220, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. He doesn't just give us something outside himself to fulfill us.

He gives us himself. Remember the promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that all nations would be blessed through them? Jesus Christ is the blessing. He is the promised one, sent by God to save us from our flesh and bring us into union with himself. Jacob was in pursuit to find a beautiful wife.

But Genesis promises he was already part of the lineage of Christ because it was God's plan. And Leah, well, she wanted a son to make her husband notice her. But Genesis 29 tells us that she was seen by God who opened her womb. And Rachel, well, she thought she would die when she couldn't conceive. But she too was heard by God and became the mother of Joseph, who saved. his family during a famine. I have no idea if Twitch founder Jeff Kahn is as happy as he claims to be, but at least he recognizes what he thought would make him happy and couldn't. Do you? Do you know when you give things more weight than they can bear? Do you know when you forget that you're dependent

on God for every good thing in your life? Do you know when you are exchanging the blessings for the one true blessing. God knew we weren't going to do this perfectly, but he gave us his son to heal us from being given over to it. And he gives us his spirit to help us. See, Khan said he had to think about how he wanted to be in the world and who he wanted to be in the world. How do you want to be in the world? Do you want to be dependent on yourself or on God? Do you want to be unaware and ungrateful or thankful and content? How can you change that mindset, starting right now?

And who do you want to be? Do you want to make a name for yourself or a name for God? Do you want to let your light shine as bright as it can until you burn out? Or do you want to let his light shine through you? Maybe it means you take a little less than what you're worth, less attention, less affirmation.

Maybe it means you give a little more, more time, more consideration. more compassion. Ultimately, though, it comes down to you believe Jesus Christ is the blessing, is having him enough for you. I'll be honest. Sometimes I know this more with my head than my heart, and I have to ask God, make my desires match what I know I should want. Line my heart up with what Psalm 374 tells me when it says, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. When I'm on the treadmill, I have to ask God to bring me back, bring me back into what you want, Lord, what you want me to want, make my heart want Jesus and make me content with Jesus.

It's a work in progress, but I trust him with my life and my desires. And so can you. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your life. your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.