Abraham’s Tinder:
In a scene from the movie “How to be single”, one of the female leads sits at a bar and uses a bowl of peanuts to explain to the bartender what her chances of finding love in New York are. The bowl of peanuts are the 8 million people in New York. She splits the peanuts in half as she is only interested in men – 4 million left. She keeps on splitting the peanuts: he must be older than 18 and under 40, 2 million potential mister rights. Prince charming must of course have a college degree, be taller than her, want to have children and share her beliefs. This leaves her with a crushed peanut, despite 8 million people her chances of finding love is meagre at best.
Our capital Pretoria has around 400 000 members of the opposite sex, the peanut can be very small. Our culture in a nutshell. “Nuts” aside we are obsessed with finding the one. The cultural reference above just illustrates what a miracle it is, if we apply the rules everyone is selling us on. A million swipes left and right and tinder will give us an Adam or Eve.
Abraham as cupid conjures images of a very weird meme but maybe he had finding love down, way before tinder was even a possibility. In Genesis 24, Abraham calls his most trusted servant to find his son Isaac a wife that is from his own country. The servant promises, but he immediately gets what a mammoth task this is – find someone in a faraway country that will marry a person they have never met… Sounds like we have better odds with the peanuts.
The story intros with 3 things that stand out. These men took the first step thus pursuit is critical. No man is an island and he needs council, in this case his father (Abraham) and a trusted servant. Lastly Abraham wanted a wife for Isaac that was from his country, maybe a shared background and the same beliefs are a good place to start. Great advice but not very practical, that’s what the next part of the story is for…
The servant starts his fairy tale type quest at a watering hole. It sounds familiar, but this is not the watering holes we are used too. Drinks aren’t bought in the hope that we will be someone’s best option for a night. This is a real watering hole, where most woman of that culture would go to fetch water at sunset. Here we get the first clue to Abraham’s type of tinder. He (the servant) went where he knew most woman that was worth approaching, would be. He simply used his common sense. Nothing spiritual, just him making sure that he gives himself the best chance to find the girl. We also need to do this whatever that may mean, going to the gym, finding a job, taking up a new hobby, being the best version of you. It is however at this point where he makes his smartest “move”. He asks God for help to discern which one of these women would be the right choice. He is guided to line up a loaded question that only a godly woman would know how to answer. He asked for a woman to bring him water and the one who would give water to his camels as well, would be the right one.
Let’s call this a Camel Question because the question might be different for everyone in different circumstances. The answer to the question is however the key, as this was his way to instantly know who a godly woman with character is. We as men need to pursue our relationship with God so fully that God is at hand at any time, to provide us with a camel question to “ask” instantly, when we find the right “watering hole”. We must also have the ability to recognise the right answer and thus character. Woman need to pursue God so wholeheartedly that they are ready with godly answers even when doing something so mundane as just completing a daily task. Abraham’s tinder is also instant but it comes with T&C’s to let God do the swiping left or right. All we need to do is be in a position to hear God and reflect Him, even when we are just visiting our nearest watering hole or fetching water.
Love the “hell” out of each other…