This is a narrative sermon I preached on 5th July 2026, based on Genesis 24 (and thereabouts).

„My name is Rebekah. I have lived a long, full life. I’m Isaac’s widow and have two sons; twins, to be precise.
They are called Jacob and Esau. They are grown men now and have had a complicated relationship, to say the least.

Recently, I’ve been thinking again and again about that one fateful day, back when I was a teenager. I was young, pretty, easily excitable, and, of course, somewhat naive. I’ve never been a girly girl, though. I grew up with brothers and was a real tomboy! I was strong and athletic, outgoing, and loved a challenge. Not very lady-like, I know. To quell my thirst for adventure and competition, I made up my own games to challenge myself.

Carrying Water

Like on that one evening. As always, I had set off with a large jar to fetch water for the family. Already from afar I spotted right by the well a man with his ten camels. I had never seen him before. He must have travelled a long way. He looked dusty and tired. When I got closer, his eyes lit up and he asked me to give him some water to drink, which I did. As he drank, I had one of my foolish little ideas. As usual, the words had left my mouth before I had thought them through properly, “Let me get water for your animals, also!” So here I was, drawing and carrying water for ten grown camels! It’s crazy, the amount of water they need! It took me ages, I felt more and more exhausted, but the adrenalin of this challenge kept me going.

Hearing Gods Voice?

What made me offer to water all these camels? Over the years, I have wondered about this. Maybe it was just my usual youthful foolishness. I have come to think that there was some still small voice, like a divine whisper, that inspired me to offer water to the camels. But I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

I still can’t fully untangle what was God and what was just me. Whether God inspired it or not, little did I know that this weird and utterly exhausting (!) water-fetching-challenge would change the course of my life forever.

It turned out that the camel driver interpreted my tireless work that evening to be a divine sign! He had come to our town to find a wife for his master, Isaac. Later, he said that my enthusiastic offer to water his camels was a sign from God; a sign that I was ‘the one’; a sign that his quest had been successful.

It didn’t take much to convince my family. All his talk about his prayerful discernment was music to their ears.

To me, it sounded quite presumptuous, to be honest. What did he know about me, after all? Nothing! He had his own agenda. Of course he did. And there’s no shame in that. He was being sent to recruit a matriarch for his master’s tribe.

But I do wonder: If a different girl had appeared at the well that evening, would he have picked her? Well, we’ll never know.

In any case, within a day it had been decided: I was to be that bride to be taken to a faraway land. I found myself riding one of those camels I had fetched water for only hours before.

Here I was, on a journey into the unknown. And why? Because a man had claimed he knew God’s will. My life was turned upside down because the men in charge of me—my father and brothers—had decided so.

The Danger of Divinely Justified Power Abuse

Only much later I understood an important lesson: “God told me” is one of the most useful sentences a man can say. It ends arguments before they start. It turns one man’s certainty into everyone else’s obligation. Nobody in my family sat with the question of whether this was really God’s will for me.

The man claimed to know God’s will. All agreed. Case closed.

My consent wasn’t even needed anymore. Not really. Granted, they did ask me if I’d be ok with speeding things up. The man wanted us to get on our way as quickly as possible. I agreed without much thinking. Again, I have mulled over this in the decades since. Why did I say yes? Why didn’t I at least enjoy a little more time with my mother, my girlfriends, my neighbours?

Maybe God stirred me to agree to leave that very next day. Or maybe it was the intimidating assuredness of all those men that inadvertently pressured me into saying yes. I guess I’ll never fully untangle the two.

All I know now, decades later, is that sometimes being asked isn’t the same as actually having a free choice; especially when everyone around you has already decided, and is assured that God is on their side.

Discovering My Agency & Blessings

When I think back, I remember feeling this resentment inside: resentment towards those men who had the power to move others around like pawns on a chess board; resentment towards my life and its limitations; even resentment towards God.

However, even though my life was far from self-determined, I understand now, that I had, and have, more agency than many others. I have more agency than many of our servants, who better do as they are told. For example, my maids and nurse had their lives uprooted, too, when we moved away from my family. They were even more at the mercy of others than I had been.

Or just think of Hagar, my mother-in-law’s servant: a foreign woman, forced to have a child by  my father-in-law, abused, and later driven away. And again: the people that mistreated her did so because of a—real or perceived—divine promise.

The Abused Becoming The Abuser

You may have gathered that I care about integrity, right? This means, though, I must be honest with you: I, too, had a real God moment, once. During my difficult twin pregnancy there was a situation where I also heard God’s voice. I know, I know! I have railed against other people claiming to have had divine inspiration, and now I do the same. But in my heart of hearts, I know it’s true. In a tumultuous time, God’s voice brought me peace, comfort, and a vision for the future of my sons.

I could have left it at  that: a personal, hope-inducing God encounter. But I didn’t. I clearly hadn’t learned from what I had experienced as a young girl. I used “God told me so” as a justification to alter other people’s lives forever. I became the driving force behind tricking my husband into blessing one of the twins, and not the other. All because I was convinced to know God’s will, and wanted to make it happen with all my might. Decades later, I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. All I know is that I hurt the people I love the most and ultimately broke my family apart. I ended up doing to others exactly what had been done to me.

Giving & Receiving Grace

This experience has left a mark on me. I have wrestled with my own failings, and it has softened my self-righteousness. I have become less judgemental of how other people experience God, how they connect to the divine.  But I also understand now that there is a difference between hearing God’s voice, and acting on it. I have learned my lesson: claiming divine inspiration is no excuse to betray or coerce others.

In the end, I must say, that even with my suspicion
towards things like ‘hearing God’s voice’, I do feel my life had a sort of ‘divine vocation’. Just think about how my outgoing strong decisiveness counterbalanced my husband’s insecurities. I do feel we were meant for each other.

I’ve come to the conclusion that God is working towards the good within and despite all the mess we humans often make. Just the other day, for example, I got the news that my sons had met and reconciled. Can you believe this? After decades of bad blood and separation!

Was this God’s plan all along? Or is this reconciliation God’s rescue of a mess I made by getting the divine voice tangled up with my own certainty? I don’t know. I’ve stopped needing to know. I trust that it’s grace either way.

Listening to God, acting on it, and living with the consequences has always been, and will always be, a messy business. It involves getting it wrong. It involves, again and again, forgiving others and asking to be forgiven. God is not on the side of whoever speaks his name the loudest, or first, or with the most authority to back it. When someone claims to speak in God’s name—including me, including your own inner voice—what is needed is not blind trust and instant obedience. It’s discernment, patience, community, and a healthy portion of suspicion towards those in power.

And when we get it wrong—and we will—God forgives, works for the good of all, and grants new beginnings: despite us mishearing God’s voice and misusing God’s name. God fights with and for those, who are at the mercy of others. God blesses and provides even, and especially, when people upturn the lives of others. God makes a way for brothers to meet again after thirty years of silence. That is the only certainty I have left. Not that I, or anyone else, correctly heard the divine voice, only that the divine was among us, all along.“