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To recap what we learnt last time.

Abraham has commissioned his most senior servant to back to Ur of the Chaldees and find a wife for Isaac. The servant takes ten of his camels and heads towards  Mesopotamia and the city of Nahor which is probably another name for Heron which is where Abraham originally came from. He took 10 camels because of the length of a journey, it would have been normal to take all the supplies that it would have needed for a journey like that. That’s still the norm today among Bedouin people nothing unusual about that just, like packing the car today when we go for a long drive. Upon arriving there ,he stops outside the city by the well at evening time when the women would usually go to draw water.

I hope you paid close attention if you are single if you are looking for a mate.  He first of all prayed and then went to the place where the type of people he was looking among gathered Notice verses 12.

Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.

(Genesis 24: 12)

Look what happens next.

17 The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.” 18 “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. 19 After she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have had enough to drink.

(Genesis 24: 17-19)

A camel drinks 25 gallons at a time, that’s approx 250 gallons. Thinking on this passage I thought about how I could convey what 25 gallons is  So I googled, how much does a normal bathtub hold. In the UK an average bathtub holds 24 gallons. So, she is going to have to pull up buckets of water on a rope to fill 10 bathtubs full of water.

What does that say about her, well she has some sensitivity to the camels and she’s not afraid of hard work. She's industrious to say the least because she understood what that would mean probably. It also indicates that she was a pretty healthy young woman. Her readiness to work and to serve I tests a whole bunch of things that were valued in a wife in Biblical times. It indicates her hospitality her kindness her willingness to meet a stranger and as we're going to see in a minute she did all this without any hesitation and without the least grumbling.

Now let me pause before we go any further if you to give advice to a single person looking for a mate you could do a lot worse that to do what this guy did. Generally I don’t believe God is going to produce a life partner for us supernaturally but maybe you should just pray ask the Lord to bring the right person along and then test their character against some Biblical principles. There is only one thing you shouldn’t compromise on. That the person should be a believer in Jesus Christ and then there's some other things that might be desirable, but they should be negotiable, Therefore, the biblical principle here it seems is to simply to pray and come up with a plan. Ok so that was the plan now let's see if this plan works  Look at this, it happened before he had even finished praying, before he finished speaking behold Rebecca. He's sitting praying and before he can finish praying bam here comes Rebecca with her pitcher of water.

Now the young woman was very beautiful to behold and the servant ran to meet her and said, “please give me a little drink of water from your pitcher and she gave it to him then continued to draw water for the whole ten camels”. He then asks if there is room in your father's house for him to to lodge and she says there is enough to room for him to lodge there. I don't know how many people were in his party, but it was more than just him. And she says come with me we can put you all up. Not surprisingly, he worshipped the Lord at this point, saying.

Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.” The young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things. 

(Genesis 24: 27-28)

The Hebrew word translated faithfulness is saying the Lord has been faithful to the covenant he made with Abraham. He promised him that he would be given the land and his descendants, and this is the way he has provided for this. The Victorians have a word for this kind of activity and the word is providence. The idea that God works providentially is simply a fancy word to say that God often works through natural means he doesn't always work supernaturally. I don't deny that God works miracles there's certainly plenty of those in the Bible but God also works through very natural means. Then verse 28 concludes by saying, the young woman ran and told her mother's household these things.