Not Worth A Mess Of Pottage

Esau was known as a great hunter. That was who he was supposed to be. The one thing he was good at was going out into the field and getting food for himself. At one point, he came back from the field with no food, completely famished. He was a failure. He did not live up to what he was supposed to be. He must have felt that he had no more value and that his future looked devastatingly bleak. When he begged his brother for food, he did not balk at the price. He was a hunter who couldn't hunt. What did he care for birthrights? The birthright should go to the brother who actually succeeded in getting food, instead of going to the hunter who couldn't hunt. He had failed at who he was supposed to be and thus didn't see any point in preparing or planning for or attempting to secure his future. In the movie Avengers: Endgame, when Thor laments to his mother that he has not managed to live up to who he was supposed to be, she says, "Everyone fails at who they are supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person, of a hero... is how well they succeed at being who they are." Maybe Esau failed at being a great hunter. Maybe he didn't become who he thought he was supposed to be. On that particular day, Esau may have believed that his life and his future weren't worth even a measly bowl of soup, but thankfully, he was wrong. Esau was a descendant of Abraham and Isaac. God had chosen him to be much more than just a great hunter. Despite bartering away his birthright in a moment of weakness, Esau went on to do great things. We must never believe that we are worthless because we are failing to be who we are "supposed" to be. Regardless of our failures and setbacks and detours from our dreams and plans, we must always remember that who we are, from before we were born and into the farthest reaches of eternity, are children of God. We have infinite worth and we should never let anyone, ourselves included, convince us that just because certain parts of our lives haven't gone exactly the way we expected, it doesn't mean that there is no hope. Who we are "supposed" to be is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the glory and majesty of who we will eventually become through the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ.