Abraham's servant

"'O Lord. . . . Let the young woman to whom I shall say, "Please let down your water jar that I may drink," and who shall say, "Drink, and I will water your camels"---let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac'" (Genesis 24:12-14).

We don't even know his name, only that he is a servant of Abraham. And yet it is evident that he has his own personal relationship with God.

I see three sparkling jewels in this prayer. One is the unselfconscious humility of a man who is empty of himself and is all about his master's business. Are not such men those Jesus had in mind when He suggested that there will be surprises, and that "many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Matthew 19:30)? Surely the world's "unknown" are "well known" in heaven (2 Corinthians 6:9).

The second jewel is the quiet confidence that God hears and will answer. It does not seem to enter the man's mind that he will be left dangling, or put to shame. We can explain it away as a function of the times he was living in. But I prefer to take the face value---this servant, like his master Abraham, simply "believes God."

The third jewel is creativity. Such praying as this does not arise in a vacuum. It is more likely that we are seeing a snapshot of an abiding mutual knowing of Father and Son that gets deeper and richer and freer in conversation and requests. But always, even in this familiarity, the servant's desire is God-ward, not self-ward. This is not the exploitative prayer of the fifth grader who pleaded during a social studies test, "God, please let Chicago be the capital of Illinois!"

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