Our culture tends to idolize romantic love. We may even believe the message of the Beatles’ song from 50 years ago: Love is all you need. Romantic love is generally a good thing, but a good thing becomes a counterfeit god when we ascribe ultimate meaning to it.

In Gen. 29, we find Jacob looking for transcendence and meaning in his relationship with Rachel. Jacob believed as we do sometimes – that if we could find that one special person (our “soulmate”), all that is wrong within us would be healed. When this happens, Ernest Becker says, “the love object is God” in our lives. This truth is revealed in the Biblical account of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah.