Intermediate Level, Block 2—Babel and Good Land
Week 20
The One Isaac Marries (Revised on 2/23/2021)
Point to Emphasize: We can be those who are willing to apply ourselves to difficult tasks.
Reference Reading: Genesis 24
Memory Verse: The plans of the diligent leads only to plentifulness, / But everyone who is hasty comes only to want. (Proverbs 21:5
Story Sample
In our story today, we come to the time when Isaac was a young man. Abraham was concerned for his son’s future. Isaac was grown and needed a wife. So Abraham charged his servant to go back to his country and among his relatives to find a proper bride for his son, Isaac. The old servant took ten (10) camels to carry all the supplies and gifts for the bride. It was not a short trip. It must have taken him weeks to get there.
When the servant reached the well by the city, he prayed to God. He asked God to lead him to the right wife for Isaac and God answered it in that exact way. There was a woman with a pitcher on her shoulder. Her name was Rebekah. She quickly came and offered water to the servant and for all the camels.
Who has a dog? How much does a thirsty dog drink? And how much time does it take to fill this bowl with water? I had a dog when I was in High School. It would take me about 5 minutes to fill up the bowl of water for my dog. Yep, not a hard task at all. But I remember that every time my mom would call me to give some water to the dog, and somehow I always complained. “This job is VERY HARD”! But I have to admit that it was actually an easy job and only took a few minutes. [Storyteller, share your personal story about performing a task, maybe feeding a pet.]
Now, let’s look at Rebekah, watering those camels. Remember, Abraham’s servant had 10 camels with him. How much water do you think a thirsty camel will drink? A LOT!! A thirsty camel will drink about 30 gallons of water in 10 minutes. [Show milk jug-it would be 25 of these.] WOW! That is a lot of water in a short time. Now, we don’t know how big the pitcher Rebekah was using, but let’s say it was this size. So let’s do some math. There were _____ (10) camels. Each camel drank _____ (30) gallons. So, about how many gallons of water did Rebekah draw from that well? 300!! How many times did she have to go down into the well? MANY, MANY TIMES!! That was a lot of work. How long might that take?
Now, have you noticed that I said GO DOWN INTO THE WELL? Let’s look at some wells. (Storyteller, draw a regular well on the board) With this kind of well, you lower a bucker down and draw it up again. You never go down into the well. This kind of well is soooo deep. The water may be 50-100 feet down. If you fall in you can’t climb out. So, this is not the kind of well Rebekah went down into. [Draw an artesian well.] Now, here is another kind of well. This is called an artesian well. With this kind of well sometimes the water is very near the surface and you only have to take a few steps to go down into the well to draw water.
This is the kind of well Rebekah was at. She carried the pitcher down the steps, filled it up with water and then carried it on her shoulder back up. She did this MANY TIMES to water those camels. She went down, filled her pitcher and came up. Down, fill the pitcher and come up. It might have taken her 30 minutes to bring up enough water for those camels. Maybe it took her even longer. And all that time she repeatedly went down and up those steps.
So was Rebekah a lazy person? No, she was kind, generous, and cheerful to offer help to the servant. She was also hard working and very diligent. She is the kind of friend you’d want to have by your side when you have a hard task to do.
After Rebekah had watered the camels, Abraham’s servant told Rebekah that God had led him to her and that she was the one God had chosen to marry Isaac. Rebekah accepted his offer and willingly followed the servant back to marry Isaac.
We can be like Rebekah: hard working and diligent. You don’t want to be a lazy person who complains about the task given. On the contrary, you want to work cheerfully and diligently until the job is done!