What if I told you to name your price? As in, what if you could set the number of hours you’d work in order to earn your current salary for the year? The ball is completely in your court. What would you say?
Can’t settle on a dollar amount?
What if instead, I asked, how many hours would you work for a year’s worth of groceries? Or for tuition? Or for a TV, car, or house?
Weird question? It’s get weirder.
What if I said, how many hours would you work...to marry the spouse of your dreams?
Genesis 29 shows us that a man named Jacob was given this very proposition.
Jacob fell in love (maybe lust lol) immediately after laying eyes on his first cousin, Rachel, while he was on the run from his brother who was trying to kill him (the Bible is quite entertaining). After a month of staying with Rachel’s parents during his journey, Rachel’s father, Laban, told Jacob the following:
“15 “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what should your wages be?”
Note carefully what Jacob says in response:
18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”
Laban didn’t demand Jacob to work seven years for his daughter. Laban didn’t even request it. Jacob VOLUNTARILY chose to work for seven years. The terms and conditions were set by Jacob.
Why would he do this?
I believe it’s because, in Jacob’s eyes, seven years of labor was the worth of making Rachel his future bride.
To Jacob, Rachel was worthy of seven years of free labor.
Gosh, this may sound preposterous to some, but I actually think this is absolutely beautiful.
I’m quite the romantic and love love stories in the Bible. I could read Songs of Solomon every night. I could read Francine Rivers’ books and blush every time. Therefore, you’d think I’d smile when reading stories like Jacob’s.
But this time when reading his story, I became a bit confused, then disheartened. In the midst of reading Genesis 29, the reality set in for me that Jacob’s actions would appear so rare in our day and age.
Jacob saw the worth of his bride and voluntarily named his wages—gladly working for what she was worth.
You have to understand. I live in a culture today that values doing as little as possible to get as much worth as possible...whether it be a tangible item, an experience, or in many cases, a relationship. We call this “working smarter” because who wants to work harder?
There are some appropriate places for this mindset, I can’t lie.
But what happens when this type of thinking removes our ability to accurately evaluate things in our lives that were never meant to be cheapened by efficiency assessments, cost-benefit analyses, and returns on investment estimates?
What if we realized the immeasurable value of certain things in our life and worked heartily simply in accordance with what it meant to us?
For instance, what is your personal assessment for the value of your marriage?
What about your relationship with your child, parents, or friends?
How much worth is the health of your body, the Lord’s temple, to you?
How much do you honestly value your time?
All I’m saying is this: If some of these things are of great worth to you, do your actions, priorities, and work reflect it?
Rachel was worth seven years of work in the eyes of Jacob. And Jacob considered those seven years as if they were merely days because of his love for Rachel.
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.
I imagine he didn’t complain about the amount of time nor work that he was putting in to marry her. His work reflected her worth to him.
PonderedThought: Next time you find yourself complaining about how long or hard you’re having to work on something, whether it’s your marriage, relationships, health, job, a degree, etc—ask yourself, “how much value do I place this?” If you value it greatly, do the work cheerfully, don’t cut any corners, and stop complaining. If certain things are not of much value to you, reprioritize your life so that other things that are of greater value receive your greater attention and energy.