Rachel's Seven Phases of Unmet Desire

Let’s look at the story of Rachel. She was the wife of Jacob. Jacob was married to Rachel and to her older sister Leah. Rachel was the favorite, but Leah kept having children.

Rachel was having none. Back then the most important thing a woman could do was to produce offspring.

It was considered the favor and approval of God. Barrenness was considered a curse. So this is a huge trial for Rachel. Genesis 30:1 says, ‘And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, she envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.’ Here we see three phases: envy, despair, and blame.

She envied her sister, she was in despair saying ‘or else I die,’ and she blamed Jacob, saying ‘give me children’ as if it were his fault. Next, in verse 3, she manipulates: she gives her maid Bilhah to Jacob to bear children on her knees. Then in verse 8 she says, ‘With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed’—the phase of wrestling, giving it everything.

In verse 14, she gets into natural remedies, mandrakes, and even hires out her husband to Leah for mandrakes, which backfires—Leah conceives again. Then we see the phase of bitterness and cynicism in Sarah’s story (Genesis 18:12), where she laughs at God’s promise.

Finally, in Genesis 30:22, ‘God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened unto her, and opened her womb.’ She bore a son, Joseph. She had to come to the end of her rope and surrender. This illustrates the seven phases we go through when we have an idolatrous unmet desire: envy, despair, blame, manipulation, wrestling, bitterness/cynicism, and finally surrender.