Discovering Destiny (Part 25): Stop Campaigning and Start Praising

https://youtu.be/F3UucaLi16k?si=RKCUbfmbBzRUptHy

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

Yesterday, in our “Discovering Destiny” series, we left Leah at her fourth son. She named him Judah and said, “Now I will praise the LORD.” Today I want to stay with Leah one more time, because something changed in that woman’s life the day she stopped living for her husband and started praising her God.

Key scriptures for this year:

2 Peter 3:18 GNT“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”

Luke 10:20 Mirror“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”

1 John 3:10 Mirror“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Scripture(s) we will study today:

Genesis 30:17-18 NLT“God answered Leah’s prayers, and she became pregnant again and gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob. She named him Issachar, for she said, ‘God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband as a wife.'”

Genesis 30:19-21 NLT“Then Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a sixth son for Jacob. She named him Zebulun, for she said, ‘God has given me a good reward. Now my husband will treat me with respect, for I have given him six sons.’ Later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.”

Supporting scriptures:

Genesis 29:35 NLT“Once again Leah became pregnant and gave birth to another son. She named him Judah, for she said, ‘Now I will praise the LORD!’ And then she stopped having children.”

Hebrews 13:15 NLT“Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name.”

1 Chronicles 12:32 NLT“From the tribe of Issachar, there were 200 leaders of the tribe with their relatives. All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take.”

Matthew 4:15-16 NLT“In the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali, beside the sea, beyond the Jordan River, in Galilee where so many Gentiles live, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined.”

1 Samuel 16:7 NLT“The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

Genesis 49:31 NLT“There Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried. There Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, are buried. And there I buried Leah.”

Ruth 4:11 NLT“May the LORD make this woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, from whom all the nation of Israel descended! May you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.”

Setting the Stage:

Yesterday we left Leah at the fourth son. Judah. “Now I will praise the LORD.” And the very next line in Genesis 29:35 says “then she stopped having children.” If the story ended right there, you would walk away thinking her praise shut something down.

It did not. Genesis 30 picks the story back up, and the house is a soap opera. Rachel is jealous. Servants are being handed over. Reuben brings home mandrakes from the field, and Rachel trades a night with Jacob to get them. And right in the middle of all that mess, the Bible says something about Leah it never said for the first three sons: “God answered Leah’s prayers.” Watch what happens on the other side of the praise.

Quick side note on the children:

People mix this up, so let me lay it out plainly. Leah gave birth to seven children. Six sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, plus a daughter named Dinah. Rachel gave birth to only two. Joseph and Benjamin, and she died giving birth to Benjamin. Then each wife had a servant, and each servant had two sons. Rachel’s servant Bilhah had Dan and Naphtali. Leah’s servant Zilpah had Gad and Asher.

So four women gave birth to those twelve sons, but history only acknowledges two of them. Nobody calls them the tribes of Bilhah and Zilpah. When the elders blessed a bride in Ruth 4:11, they said “like Rachel and Leah,” and the servants are nowhere in the sentence. In that house, a son born to a servant was credited to the wife who handed her over, and the wife is the one who named him. Count it that way and eight of the twelve boys are attributed to Leah, and four of the twelve are attributed to Rachel. Eight tribes came out of Leah’s house. Four came out of Rachel’s.

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. She Changed Who She Was Talking About.

Line up the six names in order and you will see the whole thing. Every one of the first three is measured against her husband. With Reuben she says he will finally love her. With Simeon she names herself by his rejection and calls herself unloved. With Levi she is counting sons like a woman building a case in court. Then Judah comes, and all she says is “Now I will praise the LORD!” Issachar: “God has rewarded me.” Zebulun: “God has given me a good reward.” Do you see it? God stopped being the footnote and became the headline. She changed the subject of her sentence. I call this checking the subject of your sentence, because whatever you keep talking about is what you are really living for.

How this applies to you:

— The first three names were a campaign for a man’s affection. The next three put God at the front. Praise, then reward, then reward again. Same woman, same house, same husband who still had not changed. What changed was who she was talking about.

— Whatever you keep talking about is what you are living for.

— Now let me be honest with you, because the Bible is honest. At Zebulun she still says, “now my husband will treat me with respect.” The old ache was not completely gone. But look at the order: “God has given me a good reward” comes first, and the husband comes second. God moved to the front of the sentence, and the man moved to the back. That is growth, and God will take growth over perfection every single day.

— You do not have to be finished to be different.

— Hebrews 13:15 NLT calls it “a continual sacrifice of praise.” It is called a sacrifice because it costs you something to praise God when nothing around you has changed yet. Leah had no new husband, no new marriage, and no new love. She had a new song anyway.

— Listen to yourself this week. Who is the subject of your sentences? “He never.” “She always.” “They did this to me.” When the people who hurt you are the subject of every sentence you speak, they are running your life and they do not even know it. Change the subject.

— When God becomes the subject of your sentence, He becomes the source of your joy.

2. God Answered Her Prayers, Not Her Campaign.

Count it with me. The first three sons were born while she was campaigning: Reuben, Simeon, Levi. Then she praised God and named the fourth one Judah, and the Bible says she stopped having children. It looked like the end. It was a pause, not a period. After that pause came Issachar, then Zebulun, then a daughter named Dinah. So on the other side of that campaign she had four children: Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah. She had more children after the praise than she ever had while she was campaigning.

How this applies to you:

— Genesis 30:17 NLT says, “And God answered Leah’s prayers.” That sentence never shows up for the first three sons. Genesis 29:31 says the LORD saw her and enabled her to have children, but nowhere in that stretch does the Bible say she prayed. Something changed in what she was doing with her mouth, and heaven answered.

— You will get more from one prayer than from ten years of campaigning.

— Now let me be honest with you, because Genesis 30 does not clean her up. In that same stretch she hands her servant Zilpah to Jacob, and later she trades her son’s mandrakes to Rachel for one night with him. In verse 18 she even credits Issachar to giving her servant away. She was praying and still figuring it out at the same time. And God answered her anyway. That was not a reward for a perfect performance. That was grace.

— Striving produces stress. Praise produces fruit.

— The quiet season between Judah and Issachar was not punishment. Sometimes God will let a season go silent, not to shut you down, but to change what you are producing for. When the fruit came back, it came back with different names on it. The pause was a reset, not a rejection.

— Some of you have been in a dry stretch and you have decided God closed you down. Ask a better question. Is God changing what you are producing for? Leah’s first three sons were born to win a man. Her last four came to a woman who had already opened her mouth and praised God.

— What God gives you after the praise is better than what you were chasing before it.

3. Half The Nation Of Israel Came Out Of Her Womb.

Now look at what that womb actually produced. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Six of Jacob’s twelve sons. Six of the twelve tribes of Israel. Half the nation. And do not just count them, look at what they carried. Levi carried the priesthood, and Moses and Aaron came out of that tribe. Judah carried the throne, and David came out of it, and so did Jesus. Issachar produced the men who could read the times. And the region Matthew calls the land of Zebulun and Naphtali is the ground where Jesus based His earthly ministry. The woman nobody wanted produced half of Israel.

How this applies to you:

— Rachel got the love story. Leah got the legacy.

— 1 Chronicles 12:32 NLT says the men of Issachar “understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take.” Every generation needs people who can read the times and tell God’s people what to do next. That gift came out of Leah.

— When Jesus left Nazareth and moved to Capernaum, Matthew says it fulfilled Isaiah’s word over “the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali,” where “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” Matthew 4:15-16 NLT. The headquarters of the ministry of Jesus sat in a region that carried the name of Leah’s sixth son.

— She thought she was having babies. She was populating a nation.

— Then there is the detail almost everybody misses. At the end of his life, Jacob gives burial instructions in Genesis 49:31 NLT: “And there I buried Leah.” Rachel was buried out on the road to Bethlehem. Leah lies in the covenant tomb at Machpelah with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebekah, and Jacob asked to be buried in that same cave. The wife he did not choose is the wife he chose to be buried with.

— Here is what I want you to catch. Leah never got the thing she spent her early years chasing. She never got the love. But watch how God settled it centuries later. In Ruth 4:11 NLT, the elders standing in the gate at Bethlehem bless a bride and say, “May the LORD make this woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, from whom all the nation of Israel descended!” Generations after she died, a whole town was still speaking her name as a blessing over new brides. And catch who they said it over. Ruth was marrying Boaz, and Boaz came out of the line of Judah, which means Ruth was marrying into Leah’s own bloodline. God did not give Leah what she wanted. He gave her what would outlast her.

— What God builds through you will outlive what people withhold from you.

4. You Do Not Have To Be Prominent To Have A Destiny.

Rachel was the prominent one. Rachel was the beautiful one. Rachel is the one the story is built around, the one Jacob worked fourteen years to get. Nobody wrote a love story about Leah. Nobody was talking about her. And God built half a nation through the one nobody was talking about. So hear me today: prominence and destiny are two different things. People hand out prominence. God hands out destiny. You can be completely off everybody’s list and still be standing dead center in the plan of God.

How this applies to you:

— 1 Samuel 16:7 NLT says, “People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Samuel was ready to anoint the tall one. God had the shepherd boy out in a field with the sheep. Man’s evaluation and God’s evaluation are two different processes.

— Man reads the resume, but God reads the heart.

— Do not confuse a platform with a purpose. Some of the most anointed people I know will never be famous, will never have a large following, and will never trend. Heaven has more written about them than about people with a million followers.

— You are not waiting on visibility. You are walking in an assignment.

— Leah’s name does not show up in many sermons, but her sons show up in the census, in the priesthood, on the throne, and in the genealogy of Jesus. You do not need people talking about you for God to work through you.

— So stop waiting to be chosen by people before you walk in what God already gave you. Nobody picked Leah. God used her anyway. If God’s plan required a vote from people, not one of us would make it.

— Do not let the room where you are overlooked convince you that you are not called.

That’s enough for today.

Declaration of Faith:

Father, I thank You that You are the subject of my sentences now!

I stop campaigning for people, and I start praying to You!

Striving produced stress, but my praise is producing fruit!

My best years are on the other side of my praise!

The pause in my life was a reset, and not a rejection!

What You build through me will outlive what people withhold from me!

I do not need prominence, because I already have an assignment!

Man looks at the outside, but You look at my heart!

In THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, I am discovering that You use the people nobody is talking about!

I am fruitful, I am favored, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!