The Lord will make room for you. This episode is a overview of Genesis 26. Observing what we notice to be true about God and His children as they respond to His command to dwell in the land.
Scripture: Genesis Chapter 26
Letter from the host:
Dear Beloveds,
Reflecting on and responding to the faithful and intelligent love of God has been therapeutic to my mind, heart, and body! I vulnerably share because I want you to experience the joy of authentic connection with Jesus, yourself, and others.
Growth happens at the point of connection. Thank you for trusting me with this connection! I'm glad to be with you!
With joy,
Gabrielle Michelle
New episodes onWednesdays! Bi-weekly!
Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends.
Reflecting on and responding to the faithful and intelligent love of God has been therapeutic to my mind, heart, and body! I vulnerably share because I want you to experience the joy of authentic connection with Jesus, yourself, and others.
Growth happens at the point of connection. Thank you for trusting me with this connection! I'm glad to be with you!
With joy,
Gabrielle Michelle
New episodes onWednesdays! Bi-weekly!
Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends.
The Lord will make room for you. This episode is a overview of Genesis 26. Observing what we notice to be true about God and His children as they respond to His command to dwell in the land.
Scripture: Genesis Chapter 26
Letter from the host:
Dear Beloveds,
Reflecting on and responding to the faithful and intelligent love of God has been therapeutic to my mind, heart, and body! I vulnerably share because I want you to experience the joy of authentic connection with Jesus, yourself, and others.
Growth happens at the point of connection. Thank you for trusting me with this connection! I'm glad to be with you!
With joy,
Gabrielle Michelle
New episodes onWednesdays! Bi-weekly!
Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends.
Reflecting on and responding to the faithful and intelligent love of God has been therapeutic to my mind, heart, and body! I vulnerably share because I want you to experience the joy of authentic connection with Jesus, yourself, and others.
Growth happens at the point of connection. Thank you for trusting me with this connection! I'm glad to be with you!
With joy,
Gabrielle Michelle
New episodes onWednesdays! Bi-weekly!
Thanks for subscribing and leaving a review! Please feel free to share with your family and friends.
Welcome to the return to joy podcast. I'm your host, Gabrielle Michel Leonard. Here we're leading people to cultivate joy through storytelling. We hope listening will reveal pathways to unlocking the healing power of connection, so that you can see your relationships and the world around you transformed from fractured into flourishing. There is a little bit of emotion in my voice because I just, I had my little sister who is a phenomenal spoken word artist, Grace Leonard, I had her write a spoken word for me is my birthday present or my Christmas gift. And I told her, hey, I want you to write me a spoken word that I would have the pleasure of listening to, before I get behind the mic to record a podcast episode. And it was my first time hearing her spoken word. I just listened to the recording. And I am I got some tears down my face. Just one listening to the beautiful gift that God has given her and also, man just being on the receiving end of such the Yeah, such an encouragement. And she she's so prophetic with it. Because there's things that she said in that, in that spoken word that I'm like, Man, how did she know I'm not telling my little sister that before we get into what I want to talk about today, which is called dwell in the land of play. That's the word that I just want to I want to share about in this episode. But before we go there want to do a little housekeeping, I want to make sure you guys know that this podcast is every other week. So this is bi weekly released. Sometimes it does not come out fresh, bright and early at 6am. On a Wednesday, sometimes it is in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. Now that that is all done and out of the way. I want to talk with you about dwelling in the land. I as you know this, this podcast is very unapologetically unscripted. I want to talk about Genesis chapter 26. Recently, I've been going back through Genesis again. And I kind of picked up I guess, a little bit in the middle of it. And a couple days ago, I was reading chapter 26. And I was just struck by a couple of things. So I'm taking you a little bit through my process of like what happened with me, obviously, there's there's an approach when I approached the word. There's this understanding of okay, I'm gonna I'm approaching this with, with fresh eyes. I'm coming before it and um, there's this prayer for me of Holy Spirit, would you show me what I haven't seen before, or even just like, highlight what I need to see today. And so then I really go in reading, expecting, believing that something's gonna stand out, I'm gonna see something I didn't see before. And something's going to go on and be going to be moving up on my heart here. And sometimes it's like, deeply revelational. And sometimes it's not sometimes it really is this journey, an act of faith of I did get something from that experience and time in the Word. But this time when I was reading Genesis 26, there was this. The first had just started as an as a as an inquisition. I guess you wait, something just deeply intrigued me. And what intrigued me was halfway through the chapter, you have a meet? Well, it gets me back up and give a little bit of context here. If you were to look in your Bible, I think a lot of Bibles are going to titled Genesis 26 is like God's promise to Isaac. So this is when, you know, of course, there's promises that have been made to Abraham, but we really begin to see the Lord engaging with Isaac, and affirming him as the next, you know, generational heir of the promise in Scripture is one place where I found this deep hope. Because God has generationally passed down in inheritance to his children. The the same promise that was given to Abraham, God now comes to Isaac, and says, This promise that I gave to Abraham, you're now air of possessions aren't the only form of inheritance to be passed down, you can actually be heir of a promise. And I just love the fact that we know that as just as this promise was passed to it was given to Abraham, and then God shows up and says, Isaac, now this promise that was given to your father, you're now air of it's now yours. And this is being spoken to people who actually didn't have much Abraham was beginning to grow in wealth. But it's just a beautiful thing of before before. Abraham had a wealth and had possessions which you know, then would have looked like cattle, you know, and servants and these different things. Well before that was had by Abraham, what he did have was a promise. And so we're not even talking about, there's a beauty of having material wealth that can be used and stewarded. But there's also this beauty of beyond that, abundantly, exceedingly over that is this promise that we enter into. So just think of the reality of like, Man, I just seeing that I was like, Man, I'm generationally connected even to that promise. The things that God spoke over Isaac, that he would, that he would be a blessing that his, that his descendants, would be fruitful, that they would multiply that they would be a blessing, that they would be a blessing for all the for all the nations, all the nations would be blessed because of them. And this promise that God would be with them this that, that promise kept getting passed down and passed down and passed down, all the way down to the reality of like, wow, Christ in us by through faith in Christ being grafted in to that same family tree and thus grafted in to be in in like heirs to that promise. So with that being said, of this concept of dwelling in the land, in Genesis chapter 26, it starts off with famine. The story is mainly about Isaac here at this point. And it starts with Isaac, being in this place, where there's famine, and something was really, I was really struck by the reality that in verse one of chapter 26, some of your Bibles, actually, most Bibles will probably point to a note there, that so far, this land that was promised to Abraham and this land that was promised to Isaac, both people have experienced famine in this land. I mean, really check that out. This is the promised land that they're dwelling in. And yet both of them have experienced famine in it. I think, I think Abraham did back in like Genesis 20. And now here you see Isaac experiencing in Genesis 26. And what was so striking to me, there is reality that you could actually be right where God has purpose for you to be, you could actually right be right there in the will of God, you could be right where he has you, and yet be experiencing famine. You could have the promise of God. And right where you are be experiencing famine. And so I want to encourage you not to run, not to not to automatically assume that you're not where you're supposed to be, or you need to go and chase it, you need to leave the territory where you're at, just because there's famine there. Just because it's it's hard right now, because that isn't actually synonymous, that doesn't actually mean that the Lord isn't there, that he's not dwelling there with you. They experienced this famine in the land. And then because of the famine, Isaac is about to leave. And we know that the last time there was a famine in the land, Abraham left and started journeying towards Egypt. And so before Isaac gets down to Egypt, we can assume that that's what maybe Isaac was going to do was follow that same path, and he was going to journey to Egypt. But before he does that the Lord speaks to him, and to tell tells him to actually go to gerar like to go to be in this land where this king of emelec is. And so he appears the main axis is don't go down to the land of Egypt. So he doesn't go there. But the Lord tells him to soul join here in this land, and he tells him, I'm going to be with you. He says it specifically in verse three, chapter 26. He says, so join in this land and I will be with you and will bless you, for you for for to you and your offspring. I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. Something that is so I'm just I'm just struck by it is trippy for me. And I wonder I wonder if you also find it interesting as well. Just think about that engage with what is that like to be in a land where one you've just experienced famine in the womb and part of the territory that's supposed to be your promise inheritance. Your elite you leave you go a little bit of a ways in the Lord tells you so join here. So this is not, this doesn't belong to you, this isn't your land. And yet he's saying, I'm going to be with you. And I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to give you these lands. And I just think that that experience that we see Isaac going through right now, it just seems like, man, just the perfect example of what it's like to walk through life now into what trust looks like with the Lord, have to be in being that in between space of your, your dwelling in a place that's promised to you that you do not possess, you're in a place that's not yours, that the Lord is telling you to act like it is. And that's, that's easier said than done. How was Isaac actually doing that? I'm really asking you the question. How is Isaac? Like, how does one be in a land that's not theirs? And not actually adopt the identity of someone who does not have? How do you dwell in a land that you don't own? Your name is not on the building? How do you behave not as one that has no ownership, but actually is one who knows? I do. The Lord's telling him, this is yours. He's trying to work out an identity for him, this is actually yours. This is how I relate to you, and you relate to me. And, and so because of that, this is what's going to happen, this is going to be your land. And yet it's not though. And so, he does do what God says and he settles in that in the land of JRR. And there and I could be very much so mispronouncing that for warning, but he's there in this place. And growing mightier this where you have that story of him like pretending like Rebecca's his sister, because he didn't want to get in trouble. You know, like all that's happening there for a couple of verses. And, ultimately, towards like verse 16, you have a bent leg tells him and his wife and his clan tells him y'all gotta leave here because you're growing too strong. Go somewhere else. And so Isaac does depart while he's in this valley peace, this valley area. It says that Abraham dug up a Well, that was dug in the in the days of Abraham. And he gave that well, the same name that his father Abraham a had given it. And then it says he dug another he they found another well, a spring fed well, but then the herdsmen at that. Well, They quarreled with him. He literally names the well argument, because there was a quarrel that broke out because they said, No, this is our well, what are you doing here? So, okay, he backs off from that. He's like, Alright, you got it, fam. I'll move on. So then he moves on from that, well, him and his servants begin to build another well, and this will people begin to quarrel with him and say, This is not your Well, this is our well, so he names that well, hostility. And so again, okay, he picks up everything, he moves away from that well, and we'll show you what it says in verse 22. It says, And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Ray hole both don't don't even saying for now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. He finds another well here. A third well fourth, well, if you're counting the the you're counting that the well that he that was Abraham's well, he finds another one here and in this one, he's there's no hostility, there's no quarreling, there's no argument. And he says he calls it a name of like, that means like the Lord's made space for us. He's made room. And I'm gonna just tell you what I was so struck by I don't have a I haven't come to a conclusion or an understanding. I just know when I was reading Genesis 26. I couldn't get away from seeing these wells. And I had never noticed before in Scripture, how bad How many back to back wells were dug in this moment and I was just struck by man he just moves on he goes from one to the okay, you're not gonna let me add I want he moves next space, okay, I'm not gonna let me handle him, he moves to the next space. And I just wonder, because I'm thinking about myself, I'm like, would I have moved so quickly to the next space? Or would I have actually given up after that first? Well, or for sure, given up over that a second well, and took on the identity of an orphan took on the identity of one who isn't walking with the Lord took an identity of one who's not heir of a promise, but actually taking on the identity of one who, who has been abandoned who has no ownership. Because I love that I love the reality that the Lord may not be giving you a deed to the house. He may not be, you may not have keys to walk in. But he has actually given you something he's saying, I will need you to operate based off of this promise that I have given you. That is a guarantee. I need you to operate like this is actually truth and you believe it because it is a guarantee. And your identity, the way you move has got to flow from this promise. And I see that happening for Isaac right now. I just see. I feel like the reason why he could even profess, the Lord has made space he's made room for us is because that was that was already the hope of his heart. I think Isaac already had an expectation that they're going to we're going to find a place somewhere. The Lord told me sojourn here he and he's ultimately he said, This eventually at some point going to be all mines. I love he seemed unfazed by the argument unfazed by the coral. Like the challenge and the coral of people didn't seem to faze him because he was like this. This will be mines though. This is mines. And so I just hear this expectancy, there's a praise that he gave out to the Lord of Yes, surely the Lord's made room for us. Yes, he's made space. But for me, and I can be reading this into the story, who knows, I just there's this instinctive feeling or knowing of like, like he knew he knew this was going to happen. And that's why he could move from the next one to the next one to the next one, because it was only a matter of time for him. It was only it was like, somewhere on this land is a space for us. Right now in this moment. And I trust that the Lord is going to reveal it. I trust that it's going to be there I just, I see someone operating as if they know that the Lord is with them. Then not one operating as if they're still questioning if he is. And I just it's it just strikes me because in this season for my own life, there's been such a I've been called to sort Jorn in some ways. There's been opportunities and offers that have come towards me in different ways. That would be so much easier to say okay, I'll take that I'll do that. But there's this been this beckoning from the Lord of Axi, will you trust me out here in this space? That doesn't actually clearly look like there's room for you? Actually, maybe everything on this land challenges if there's actually room for you, you don't see where you would be here? Because do you know, the place where God's promising to belong? To Isaac, that would land the saying would belong to Abraham, and all the generation and his descendants after him? It belonged to people already. It was spoken for already. God is promising something to him. To them that actually nothing about it seems possible right now. This is not a promise to land that wasn't being dwelled on. And so I just think that that happens. There's a practical application for your own life for this. If you see and you ask the Lord, Lord, where are you speaking to me here? Because you may be wondering, God, I don't see where there's space for me. I don't see where you've made room for me, or maybe everything that you are seeing is challenging that there's space for you. But actually, the truth is, he has made space for you. He has made provision for you. That actually is there. It does look different. This is a faith journey. But would you walk not as if you're waiting for if that will be true or not? But actually would you walk waiting for it to for you to see the truth of it. Those are two two For ways I want to repeat that you can walk, where you're one where you're like, you're wandering, and you're not quite sure if the promise will be true. And you're still maybe kind of questioning like, I'm not sure you're skeptical. And you're actually maybe you've been waiting for it to fail your exit, maybe you've been waiting for the Lord to not be true. Or there is a way of moving, in which you're actually waiting for the Lord to prove himself in that word to be true. I see in Isaac's movement from the next world to the next world to the next. Well, I actually hear there and I see they're like, I believe Isaac was waiting for the Word of God to be true. I believe God, Isaac was confident that he said he was going to be with me. He said that this land was mines. I'm gonna I'm gonna wait this out. I'm gonna move I'm taking action. Not there's not an inactive waiting. I'm taking action. But my every footstep I'm taking is actually wander is actually wandering and looking and perceiving for where am I going to see the faithfulness of God? Where is the promise, you know, true, even trickles of it going to be able to show up now, I'm expecting to see that I'm not going in actually looking for the Lord looking to prove the Lord a liar. I'm actually going in looking to for the Lord to prove himself true and faithful. I'm expecting the words the Word of God to be true. So okay, it's not this. Well, this isn't the well where I'm gonna be like, yes, thank you, Lord, you've made room for us. Okay, I'll save that name, my back pocket. I'm willing, I'm waiting. I'm waiting to use it. I'm gonna name some well, you know, the one the well that the Lord made space for us at one of these wells is gonna get that name. Oh, this one's hostility? No problem. I'm moving on. This is the oh, this is the well, this is the place where I get to name it. The Lord has made space for us. And here's the beautiful, amazing blessing from that, when he names it. The Lord has made space for us. He's made room for us. And the reality is that generations down, they're going to come back to that, well, I bet they're gonna come back to that well, and they're going to hear that name. And the story of Isaac discovering that well gets told again, the the nature of the generational promise gets brought back to memory again, every time that will gets passed by. And the name of the Lord is is, is exalted again and again and again. And that promise gets solidified in their hearts in their minds, again, and again and again. It's beautiful. So, maybe worth it to ask the Lord, Lord, what? What promise? Have you given me? And maybe even specifically, Lord, asking him in advance? What is the name? The name of a city, the like, the thing that I'm needing from you, the blessing? The faithfulness that I need to see from you. If that was a name, what would it be? Like I said, for hear, the name was, God has made room for us made room for us was the name. And maybe you just ask the Lord in advance of God, what is it that my heart, my mind, my body, my family? is needing to celebrate to see you do? What are we needing to see you do to see you be? What is the name of that? And maybe you get that name from the Lord now and then as you believe in faith as you move as you walk. As you as you journey. You're looking for the moment in which that promise, that name gets to be used by you. Man, maybe you're asking the Lord God, I need I need you to show yourself as good. Surely God is good. And so now when you walk out these next seven days, you're looking for the moment when you get to be like, Ah ha, here it is. Surely God is good. Surely God is good. You're waiting to use that name. You're waiting to profess that over that moment to shout it out to the rooftops I surely God was good. God, maybe that name. You're waiting for God to reveal a moment when you could call him the God who heals my heart. And so you need to keep that in your back pocket for the next seven days. isn't easy to walk around and look expecting the as you're engaging different moments in it there might say maybe sometimes there are moments, they're hard, because there's been pain and trauma that you've been experiencing. But you keep that in your backpack and you're in, you're like, hey, may not be this moment. But in one of these moments, and one of these days, I'm looking for it. At some point, I'm gonna be able to pull this out, and I'm gonna be able to say, Wow, Surely the Lord is the healer of my heart. He's the Comforter of my soul. I knew I was going to find that moment. I knew I was going to see it because it's true. It's been true all along. So what do you need to look for? What do you need to expect for God to be for you? That's my encouragement. Genesis 26 was where we were just reading. There's so much more. This was a long podcast episode. But thank you for being here with me in it. If you're hearing this message, you've listened to the entire episode. And for that I am deeply grateful. I hope this episode resonated with you and if it did help us out by sharing this episode, and leaving a review on Apple podcasts, and Spotify. Most importantly, reach out to let me know how you're engaging with this episode, and what topics you'd like to see covered in the future. You can connect with us on social media, or get in touch with me directly at Gabrielle at return to joy.com to share your heart. I'll see you in two weeks for a new episode.