Feb. 26thWenig geliebt vom Mann, aber sehr geliebt von Gott

The story of Rachel and Leah was recorded in Genesis 29–30.

Rachel was loved by Jacob.
Scripture said plainly that Jacob
loved Rachel more than Leah.
He worked seven years for her,
and those years seemed to him
but a few days because of his love for her.

Rachel was the one who was prayed for, pursued, and waited upon.

Leah, on the other hand, was described as having “weak eyes.”

The text did not elaborate much,
but it was clear that she was
not the preferred one.

She was given in marriage
through Laban’s deception.
She became the wife Jacob
did not intend to marry first.
The narrative did not hide
that she was less loved.

Because of this, many reflections
tend to place Rachel as the ideal
and Leah as the unfortunate contrast.

Rachel is often seen as the romantic figure.
While Leah is remembered as the second best.

But when I read the genealogy in Matthew 1,
I noticed something I had overlooked before.
Jesus did not come from the line of Rachel.
He came from Judah, Leah’s son.

That detail is not small.

Leah was the wife Jacob did not
initially choose, yet through
her came Judah.

Through Judah came the royal line.
Through that line came David.
And through David came Christ.

Rachel was loved deeply by Jacob,
and she was valued in her own way.
But the Messianic line did not pass through her.

To clarify, it is not that Rachel was unimportant either.
Scripture honored her. But it quietly showed
that God’s redemptive purposes were not
determined by human preference.

Leah’s life was marked by longing.
Her early sons were named with the hope
that her husband would finally love her.
There was pain in her story but in the middle of that,
God saw that she was unloved.

The text said the LORD saw that Leah was hated,
and He opened her womb. God did not overlook her.

There is something searching here.

We often tell ourselves we want to be Rachel,
chosen, pursued and waited for.

We fear being Leah, not preferred,
not first, not celebrated.

We measure blessing by visible affection.
We rank our lives by how wanted we feel.

But Scripture does not always follow our rankings.

Sometimes what we call “second best”
becomes central in God’s purposes.
Sometimes what feels like the unwanted portion
carries a weight of calling we did not expect.

Leah’s story did not look impressive at first glance.
But from her came Judah, and from Judah
came the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus.

It made me realize that we can easily despise
what God places in our lives because
it does not resemble our Rachel.

We can fixate on what we prayed for,
what we imagined, what we preferred.

Meanwhile, we may overlook the Leah already present,
the circumstance, the role, the path that feels less glamorous.

The danger is not in loving Rachel.
The danger is in assuming that what we love
most must also be the center of God’s plan.

My prayer is not that we stop desiring good things.
Rachel was not evil. She was loved and valued.
But I pray that we stop insisting that
God bless us only in the shape we prefer.
I pray that we begin to look carefully
at the Leahs in our lives, the overlooked assignments,
the unexpected seasons, the roles that do not feel chosen.

So, Leah was not second best in God’s purposes.
She was part of the line that led to Christ.

And perhaps that is the quiet comfort in her story. What feels less loved by people is not less seen by God. What feels unwanted is not unusable. The path we did not choose may still be the path through which God chooses to work.