Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall continues his biographical series called Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives, with a penetrating look at family dynamics gone awry.

Esau's story is shocking, heartbreaking, and surprisingly relevant.

You see, Isaac and Rebecca waited 20 years for children, and then God bless them with twins.

Imagine the irony, the chaos, and the joy.

Well, it wasn't all neat and tidy.

They had their hands full, especially with Esau, who lived in the shadow of his brother and grew

to resent him.

Chuck titled his message, Esau, the son who couldn't win.

I want us to study in this particular story, the life of a man named Esau.

I'm calling him the son who couldn't win.

And I have a feeling, in all honesty, that some of you hearing this story, some of you

for the first time hearing this story, will have little difficulty identifying with some of

the struggles Esau had. My Bible is open to Genesis 25, verse 19, which is one of the earlier references to the genealogy of Esau.

Let's say a word to begin with about his birth and childhood.

These are the records of the generations of Isaac Abraham's son.

Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was

40 years old when he took Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel.

Verse 21, Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord answered him and Rebecca, his wife,

conceived. Before I go any further, let me put to rest a misunderstanding. The immediate thought after

you read verses 20 and 21 of Genesis 25 is that shortly after Isaac prayed God caused her to conceive

wrong you remember reading that he was 40 years old when they married look at verse 26

the last line.

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