Esau and Emily Dickinson

If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, just skim some of the middle parts but read the last few sentences.
I recently found some neat applications to the story of Esau.

We all know that Esau's rejection of the birthright (Gen 25:27-34) has deeper implications which reveal his heart towards God. In Hebrews (12:16), he is called "a godless person." When he is denied the final blessing from his father (Gen 27:30-), he angrily remembers the birthright fiasco, blames it on Jacob, and desperately demands a further blessing. These actions are a picture of what John MacArthur, in his NASB Study Bible, calls "a desire for God's blessings with no desire for God." He wants God's blessings but not God.

In an essay about Emily Dickinson and her work, John Pickard wrote: "she rejected all that made man insignificant and helpless before the crushing force of God." My heart breaks when God's sovereign grace is interpreted this way. We have infinte value and worth, but not in ourselves, it is Christ and the vicariousness of his substitutionary death.

(God is not like Bell Express View's "pick what channels you want" package, or whatever. You know, old guys are always like, "I only like the discovery channel and the history channel." Blah blah blah. That's great.)

Liking God is hard because we like ourselves so much. Our pride is so great that we'll reject God because he makes us feel like we're not as important as he is. It hurts our feelings. Esau rejected God and favoured a bowl of stew. I love that, but only because it reminds me how childish it is to reject God on account my own pride. "No thanks God, if you're going to be all like that, you can keep heaven to yourself." "I didn't want to go to your stupid tea party anyway." "I'm having my own party, and God is not invited." Our parties always end up sucking. But it is the spite factor that we go for.

(By "we" and "I", I mean Humanity, not necessarily you, reader, or me.)

No Christian will spite God this way. We love him because he loves us.
BUT,
I want to think of Esau the next time I feel a great temptation to sin. I want to see before me, the silliness of choosing stew over God's blessing. When we give into temptation, we grieve the spirit, don't we? Isn't the Spirit one of God's greatest gifts to us?