Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. (GENESIS 29:29)
Had Bilhah known what this change in her life would mean, perhaps she would have run the other way. For seving Rachel meant more than looking after her and running her errands. When Rachel did not have children, she decided her husband, Jacob, should follow a custom of the day and take Bilhah as a concubine. According to the custom, Rachel would adopt Bilhah's children as her own. But instead of establishing a happy family, Rachel began a competition with her sister, Leah, Jacob's other wife, who had borne him four children. Eventually their face-off saddled Jacob withtwelve sons and a far-from-peaceful household, disrupted by two wives and two concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah. Though God used Bilhah to raise up some of Jacob's sons, who would eventually become leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel, her role was not a thoroughly pleasant one.
# 2 _God established marriage as between one man and one woman (See GENESIS 2:24) to reflect His covenant. Ignore that, and your family life, like Jacob's, can become as confused as the plot of a modern-day soap opera. But God blesses marriages that reflect His covenant love. Fithful love ends soap-opera lives and establishes a firm family that can serve God well. Would that describe your family? If not, what can you change?
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