Community on this Saturday after Valentine’s Day we celebrate love and a love story.

A love story is something everybody loves to hear about. Romance between a man and a woman. Everybody loves to read a love story. A love story pulls us into it, for there is something about romance; when a man and woman meet, fall in love and began a journey together it is indeed something to behold.

Every boy growing up dreams of meeting the perfect woman, falling in love and spending the rest of his life with her. Every girl growing up dreams of meeting the perfect man who steals her heart and began a whirlwind romance. The joy of two lives coming together and sharing their hearts with one another.

There is nothing like a love story. The Patriarch Abraham is in his old age (Gen. 24:1-67). And like any father he wants a wife for his son. Abraham is 140 years old and had been blessed by the Lord in all things, but one thing was missing — a worthy wife for his 40-year-old son to continue the covenant line.

Based on his experience with the inhabitants of Canaan where he is now, Abraham did not want Isaac to marry a woman from the daughters of the Canaanites. Instead, she must come from his relatives hundreds of miles away. Abraham was himself too old to make the journey back there, so he summons his most trusted servant Eliezer to go back to his homeland to find his son a wife there.

His servant said, “What if when I find one, she doesn’t want to come with me?” However, finding the right wife for Isaac required divine help, so Abraham had his servant to take an oath. All Christians can take a lesson from Abraham; he didn’t just tell his servant to go there and get a wife; but by having him to take an oath he was seeking God to find Isaac a wife.

Christians need to do that today. Rather than choose somebody because they look good or use their own judgment, the Bible says “Acknowledge God in all your ways…and He will direct your path (Proverbs 3:6)” To those Christians who are searching for a mate, don’t just settle for the first thing to come along; the first man that has a swagger, or the first woman that blinks her eyelids. God has somebody for you…pray and seek God’s counsel.

Abraham’s servant takes ten camels of his master and goes to Nahor, the home of Abraham’s brother and grandfather. And when he gets there, look at how he goes about selecting a wife for Isaac. When he arrives into the city of Nahor, he kneels down outside the city by a well of water and prays and said, O Lord God of my master Abraham…behold I stand here by the well of water, and the women come out here to draw water. Let it come to pass, that the daughter to whom I speak and say, “Let down your pitcher, give me water, that I may drink; and she shall say, ‘Drink and I will give your camels water also;’ let that woman be the woman that you have appointed; and I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”

Community, a thirsty camel can drink as much as 30 gallons of water in 15 minutes. Since ten camels came with the servant, it is possible that the young woman would have to draw 300 gallons of water equal to 2,500 pounds from the spring to pass the servant’s test. That’s a lot of water! And, before he could finish speaking, that, God answered his prayer.

I wonder, has anybody ever prayed to the Lord for something; you went in your secret closet, and you didn’t tell anybody; and you sought the Lord in prayer, and you were looking down the road for the answer. And before you could turn around God had already answered your prayer and worked it out; I have!

Before he could finish his prayer, a young woman named Rebekah came out, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. Rebekah was very beautiful to look upon and she had never been with a man in that she was a virgin. She goes down to the well to fill her pitcher, and she came up. She gave him water and his camels also; and in doing so she was shown to be the perfect wife for Isaac.

God’s hand was in this. I say to all Christians reading today, when we put God first, be obedient to him; seek his guidance, wait on the Lord, no good thing will he withhold from us; but this also teaches us saints, that we don’t have to take shortcuts, sell ourselves short, do unethical things or give in to the devil to get what God already has for us; that we don’t have to settle for anything less…become unequally yoked together with the unchurched just to have somebody (2 Cor. 6:14).

Prayer still works! Now what I love about Rebekah’s parents is that they don’t try to make her decision for her or try to influence her in her decision like some parent do today. She is willing to leave her home, travel over 500 miles and marry a man she never met. When she arrives they both see each other from a distance; she covers her face, dismounts to meet him on foot. Isaac knew that Rebekah was his divinely chosen mate. Without a lengthy courtship, he takes her to is mother’s tent, she becomes his wife, and they consummate their marriage. Community, a love story.