My Bad - Genesis 26:15-35

26:15-22 - A man could have all the flocks and herds and servants that he wants but what is the most valuable commodity in the desert? Water. Water is a precious resource that was fought over anciently, just like it is now. The Philistines were already envious of Isaac’s blessings from God, but when it came to the water, the Philistines were on another level. Verse 15 says that the wells which Abraham’s servants dug, “the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.” I don’t know if they did this on purpose as a kind of sabotage so that Isaac’s animals and crops would suffer and die, or if it was one of those things where Isaac hadn’t been around that area for a while so they filled it in because it left more water for another well or something, I don’t really know very much about ancient agriculture. Abimelech had noticed that Isaac was being blessed by God, so he asked Isaac to leave their area “for thou art much mightier than we.” I would imagine that Isaac’s wealth and position was creating some sort of power shift within the area and Abimelech was trying to avoid any kind of violent confrontation between his citizens and Isaac’s. And to be completely honest, if we look at human history in total, the most likely outcome of one man gaining more wealth or resources than the leader he lives under, is that he would try to usurp the leader’s position, overthrow him and become leader himself. Maybe Abimelech just wanted to preserve his own position as king or maybe it was that coupled with the fact that most coups tend to shift the balance of power only through violence and suffering among the citizenry, and Abimelech wanted his people to avoid that fate. Isaac agrees to leave, and goes back out into the desert to the placed where Abraham had previously dug wells, and “digged again the wells of water,” because it must have been easier to re-dig the well than start a whole new one, again, I don’t know anything about ancient water and farming practices. Isaac names the re-dug wells the same names that his father called them, and even had his servants look for new places to dig wells, “and Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.” Again, this is one of those things where there can be some level of skill involved, but whether or not there is water in a certain area is up to God and there’s not a lot that people can do to influence that. So if a man’s crops are bountiful, and his flocks give birth to many strong babies, and if he stumbles upon a brand new spring of water, that has almost nothing to do with him creating these opportunities and everything to do with God’s favor. Just like Abimelech worried about contention between Isaac and his people, “the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, The water is ours.” Maybe it’s like when someone is sitting at a slot machine all day putting in quarters and finally walks away, then the next person who sits down immediately wins the jackpot with the first pull. Maybe the herdmen were like “wait this is our area and just because we didn’t find the water, doesn’t mean that you can just have it.” These are fighting words, and both Isaac and the herdmen knew it. But Isaac doesn’t bite, he says, “no problem, I’ll find somewhere else,” and he finds another well, and guess who shows up to say “hey that’s my well too,” that’s right the herdmen. Again, Isaac doesn’t engage, and just leaves to find a new place, and when he had dug another well, the herdmen didn’t follow him this time, I guess the two good wells were enough for them at this point. The important point here is that Isaac didn’t fight for the water, even though legally and morally he was in the right. The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com says, “Water rights were a life and death issue and so were the fights over them. Now Isaac has grown great with many servants. He probably had the strength to take matters in his own hands and take the well by force. He chose not to do that.” I’m just going to pause here and remember that Abraham’s household had enough men to form an army several times, such as when they went to rescue Lot. So it’s very likely that Isaac also had enough men to form a small army capable of defending their wells, but he still chose not to engage. The article continues, “Herein is a lesson for the Latter-Day Saints. How did Isaac respond to conflict? When he was wronged, how did he act? He simply walked away and sought for water elsewhere. But he was in the right! Should he have held his ground and fought for what was his? Like his father Abraham, he was smarter than that, he knew that the conflict was not worth the water. Contention is never worth the fight. It is not worth the hard feelings. It is not worth driving away the Spirit. It is not worth the hatred that Satan feeds us until our appetite for negativity becomes insatiable… He may have avoided years of contention and decades of war with his neighbors because he had the wisdom to dig a couple more wells. He avoided contention; he was a peacemaker; he trusted the Lord to make up the difference.” I have had some interesting experiences with this concept, but in different, less dramatic ways. First was when I was in the army, I was a medic so I went to EMT classes which included ambulance runs. One night I was chillin in an ambulance with two other guys in a dirt lot because the dispatcher told us to wait there in case there was a call in that area while the ambulance that normally covers that area was on a longer assignment. After several hours of hearing nothing, one of the guys called to see if that other call had finished and could we go back to our station house. The dispatcher was kind of snippy and said, “why are you asking that, I told you a while ago that the other guys were back and that you could go back to the station house.” Now, I knew for a fact that the dispatcher did NOT tell us that we could go back because I was sitting in that ambulance the same as the other guys and none of us had heard her say that. What I expected, and what I would have done if it had been me as an inpatient 20 year old, was to respond back that she had in fact NOT told us that we were good to go back and that we had waited in the dirt lot needlessly when we could have been comfy back at the station house. What the guy ended up responding with was “my bad, ok thanks, we’ll head back now.” I have remembered this incident for the rest of my life and I really learned an important lesson from that man. I would have been correct in saying what I thought, but that would have made the dispatcher defensive and would have caused a little tiff which wouldn’t have done anything except make everybody mad. It’s really been an amazing strategy that I’ve used ever since, if being contrary doesn’t have the potential to bring about positive outcomes, then it’s “my bad,” “I’m sorry, I missed it,” or “I understood it differently.” That is something that has helped me in interpersonal situations, but Isaac was dealing with life sustaining water, how does he just walk away? Another lesson I learned, and I probably have shared this before, was when I was working nights at Kaiser back in like 2014. I wanted a day shift SO badly because I wanted to be home with my kids at night, I hardly ever saw them and I was exhausted because I was only sleeping like 3-5 hours a night for years. Anyway, there was this lady who was an immigrant so there was a language barrier there, who had a meltdown and was saying some absolutely insanely offensive things and was suspended from work pending an investigation. When I heard what happened, I instantly thought that there was no way that she was going to come back from this because what she said was VERY bad, and she said it a lot. It looked like I was finally going to get my day shift and be home with my kids at night, I was so happy. I mean, I felt bad for her because she was a good person and her husband beat her and stuff so she wasn’t very happy in life, but hey it was going to be gold for me so I was pretty stoked when she got fired and I got her shift. I was looking at the schedule that I assumed I was going to inherit, super hopeful that this would work out for me, when I was told, “Do I care for you so poorly that you are rooting for someone to fail to better your own circumstances?” That was a kick in the face for me. But He continued, “I could create the perfect shift and give it to you. I could deposit $25 million in your bank account right now, but I don’t. You have exactly what I want you to have, and when I’m ready, I’ll change your circumstances.” It was incredibly eye opening for me to hear that, and I hear/tell myself that often even now, “you have what I want you to have.” It was at this point that I was able to change my focus from “please give me something else,” to “what lesson am I supposed to learn here?” And after I started asking the right questions, it was a transformative time for me. Isaac would have been in the right to stay and fight for his wells, but God could just as easily dry up the wells prematurely as he could cause the earth to split apart and spit out fresh, clean, cook water. Sometimes it is right, and sanctioned by God, to fight like in the Book of Mormon with all those wars, but for the most part and probably 99% of the time, conflict and negativity are not what is the correct answer spiritually. I’m reminded of a story from the Ensign that I heard a long time ago about a man who was in a business dispute with another man. The first man was in the right, but the second man had more money for lawyers and a long, drawn out legal proceeding. The first guy was so consumed with anger (however righteous), and winning this battle that he was miserable. After a lot of prayer and reflection, the first guy decided to just give the other guy what he wanted, and it ended up bankrupting the first guy, he lost his house, his business and had to pay off the debt for many years, but he had peace of mind, and at the time that the article was published, he believed that it was not necessarily the “right” thing to do, but it was what the Lord wanted him to do. 26:23-35 - After finding a productive well, Isaac apparently went up to Beer-Sheba, where “the Lord appeared unto him the same night” and made the same promised with Isaac that he had made with Abraham. Then Isaac built an altar and prayed, and was visited by Abimelech of all people. Isaac asked why Abimelech had made the journey out to see him, and Abimelech basically said, “We know that God is with you, so let’s make peace between us, we won’t hurt your people and you won’t hurt ours.” Isaac accepts “and he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink,” and in the morning agreed to the pact “and they departed from him in peace.” Isaac’s people find another place to dig a well for water, again, I don’t know how. Esau turned 40 years old and took two wives, both who were Hittite and Isaac and Rebekah were distraught. I’m not exactly sure where they expected Esau’s wife to come from, and it occurs to me that it’s possible that this is not in chronological order, that it’s possible that Esau married these women after Jacob had already left, but I’m not sure. The article says, “Esau married out of the Church; Esau did not marry in the everlasting covenant revealed to Abraham; Esau chose to live after the manner of the world, rather than to keep the standards of righteousness which the Lord had given them.” Again, what were the other options? Was he expected to marry a member of Isaac’s household, like one of the servants? Were there known other groups of people who were in “the Church” as the article says that he should have gone to instead? I’m always perplexed when this issue comes up of marrying outside of the Church anciently. Everyone is so upset when Esau marries Hittite women, but those are the people that are there around him, so it makes sense, what was he supposed to do?