I make some pretty good food sometimes. Last night I made chili on the stove instead of the instant pot because one of my sons observed that the instant pot prevented the sauce from thickening the way it did on the stove. Despite the Texas summer heat, I fired up the gas burner for an hour and made a killer pot of chili. He was right, it was better on the stove.

I could see how a really hungry guy might trade a lot for a bowl of my chili because I have two teenage sons. They can pack it away when they’re hungry and I love that times haven’t changed.

Thousands of years have passed and not much about humans is very different. Hunger drives us today like it has from the time Esau traded his place in the family line for a bowl of his brother’s stew.

When reading this story yet again, it finally sank in a little deeper what it means that Esau despised his heritage, his birthright, his place as the first son in the line of Abraham. I didn’t really get it much until now what his tradeoff really reflected about his character and beliefs.

Esau was first in line from Isaac, the miraculously late coming child to Abraham and Sarah. That family storyline we know was told and retold. We tell stories in our family about surprising events over the table again and again. How many times did he hear how beautiful his grandma was and how she and Abraham left their ancestral home at the direction of an unseen God to go to a land that God promised them.

All the adventures they had along the way laid out at the family meals over the entirety of Esau’s life. Isaac’s birth to Abram and Sarai when all hope was lost for a male heir. Sarai laughing at the visitors and then holding a baby a year later!

The promise and destiny of this strange nomadic family that would have descendants like stars in the sky and grains of sand. The family that the would bless the world. The familial aspirations to greatness laid out before the next in line…Esau. Esau was the one that carried the responsibility to continue the story of the future God showed Abraham. He must have known. There’s no way he couldn’t know what was expected of Him.

Then he got hungry and Jacob offered him a trade…give up the right to the lineage to get this bowl of stew. Give up the inheritance due the firstborn materially and also give up the lineage that would bless the world that God promised. Step away from being the one that God worked His plan through. Step away from your family story given by God that you heard from the moment you could remember…for a bowl of stew.

What must it take to do that? Maybe Esau just didn’t believe it, thought Abraham was crazy and God doesn’t reach down and interact with humans? Maybe Esau just didn’t want the pressure, he wanted to hunt by himself, be left to himself? He didn’t want to lead and didn’t care about material wealth though later he had plenty.

Whatever the reason, we don’t know from the biblical account. We just know he set his entire family story given by God, lived out for a century by faithful parents and grandparents, aside for an immediate and passing physical desire. Missing the bowl of stew wouldn’t kill him.

He didn’t care enough to say no to his desire for food after a long and taxing day of work.

Hebrews, the book of the Bible that brought me face to face with this story in a deeper way, is all about perseverance and endurance. It’s all about saying no to the immediate desire for comfort and compromised peace to live for the bigger story God is working out right now.

I notice my tendency to despise what God has for me when I dream about retiring. That desire to not have the burden of leadership, the desire really to live for myself creeps up and I think that would be so nice. But it’s an escape from walking by faith in the path laid out for me. It’s a manifestation of my inward belief God isn’t giving me the life of peace I want, peace for myself that isn’t true peace because it’s selfish. It’s just cutting myself off from God.

I’ll say there is nothing wrong with retiring, with laying aside your job. I’m talking about the desire to live just for myself. So many retire from their day job to live for Christ with more hours of their day and energy. That is perseverance and endurance.

I’m talking about the desire I can have at times to bow out of the race because it’s hard. So I get Esau and I also get why it’s so tragic. He never really embraced God’s plan for his family and God’s plan for him so he gave it up in a moment of pressure.

He despised it. So today I reflect a little on that tendency in me to give in when the pressure is great and sell out for a bowl of metaphorical chili. I’m not better than Esau, we all have the temptation.

The answer? Look to Jesus the pioneer and champion of my faith who, for the joy set before Him, endured excruciating pain and shame to win the prize…us with Him. And He understands our pain and invites the needy to come to Him for grace and mercy.

It is compelling and it is enough for today.