Your Inner-GPS

Once upon a time, long ago, there was a woman who knew herself well. Even though her brother was deceptive and her mother was hesitant, when her moment of truth arrived, she knew how to be decisive. To take action. To go-forth to shape the destiny of her people.

Rebecca would become our people’s most decisive Matriarch. We meet and get to know her in this week’s portion of Torah. 

Abraham’s servant had successfully found a wife of Isaac. Rebecca’s kindness was outstanding. Her remarkable hospitality provided abundant water for the servant (he’d merely asked for a sip) and for multiple camels he had with him. She was clearly the empathic, generous spouse who can console and support Isaac and help sustain the covenantal-future. 

There’s just one problem. Rebecca’s mother and her brother Laban want to wait. “But her brother and her mother said, “Let her remain with us for ten days, then you may go” (Gen. 24:55). The servant pleads with them to not delay his fulfillment of God’s mission. So, “They called Rebecca and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” and she said, “I will go””(Gen 24: 58). 

What enabled Rebecca to be so decisive? I believe she possessed an inner-GPS that knew where she was, and where she needed to be headed. Her life-coordinates were crystal clear. She is a woman of decisive-action. In just 4 verses, we find her deploying 11 action-verbs (Gen. 24:16,18,19,20). 

To be clear, Rebecca doesn’t act in order to win the sympathy of others. Rather, she’s aspirational and she’s grateful. Rebecca knows an abiding truth. That tucked inside the heart’s deepest valleys, Rebecca knows how much we can matter to the world. 

Yes, for you and me, difficult decisions often do require that we hit the pause-button. But, in the darkest of times, Rebecca our Matriarch reminds us that breaking-points can get remade into turning-points. May your inner-GPS guide you toward your best as you greet what’s up-ahead.