Use one or both of these questions to introduce the lesson:

1. What are some items on your home or work to-do list? How will you determine which items have priority? How will you approach those tasks?

2. What is one of the most difficult tasks at home or work you have ever undertaken? What motivated you to keep going when you felt like giving up?

Read Genesis 24:7-9, 40.

1. Apparently, the servant in this passage is the same servant mentioned in Genesis 15:2-4. How did the prospects for this man change after Isaac was born? Why might that have made this assignment difficult to undertake?

2. Notice that Abraham spelled out the servant’s assignment in some detail. Describe some of the conditions included in this mission. Why were each of these conditions important?

3. In this chapter (and in much of the Bible), godly people are portrayed as taking oaths. Yet in Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus seemed to speak against the practice. How might most oaths in Scripture—including the ones mentioned in this account—differ from those that Jesus forbade? How did this oath motivate the servant to do something he might otherwise have resented doing?

Read Genesis 24:10-14.

4. Do you think that the servant’s prayer in these verses should be a model for our prayers? Explain. Have you ever offered what you now consider to be an immature prayer, yet God honored it just the same? Tell about that time.

5. Read Psalm 66:20; John 15:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; James 5:15, 16. What have you learned about our role and God’s role in prayer?

Read Genesis 24:15-19.

6. Keeping a promise and seeking God in prayer were instrumental in the servant’s fulfilling of his mission. Notice that the servant’s exercising of his own judgment based on his observations also played a role. Rebekah was not the only one of “the daughters of the townspeople” at the well (v. 13). What other criteria may have been reasons for the servant approaching her? See also verses 20-27.

7. Bring to mind a difficult task you will probably be undertaking in the near future. How will maintaining your personal integrity, counting on God’s guidance, and using your own judgment each play a role in that venture?