"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me." "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." The angel of the Lord also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael." Genesis 16:1-16
I don’t know about you but I have come to learn that I mess up things in my life the most when I try to be in control. We all seem to have this innate inclination to be in charge and do what we think is best to get us through whatever situation we might find ourselves in. The main problem with this is that we don’t think at the same level as God…not even close. So God allows us to go ahead and try and manage life if we decide to want to do so. And, of course, we learn the hard way that we should just place our trust in Him alone to lead and guide us.
Our scripture highlights what I have just wrote about concerning how we can really mess things up when we try to devise our own plans that are not in line with the Lord’s. In it, Sarai comes up with a way that she think will ensure Abram has a son to carry on his name just as God had promised. Since Sarai was considered barren and unable to reproduce, she decided to suggest to Abram that he sleep with her maidservant Hagar who could become pregnant and give Abram what she could not. On the surface, the plan must have seemed credible but there was only one real problem with Sarai’s plan: she didn’t run it by God first.
Well, we read on that Sarai’s plan didn’t carry on so well. Hagar did get pregnant but then she "began to despise" Sarai. After all, wasn’t SHE having this baby for Abram. I’m sure she was feeling that maybe Abram should be her man and not Sarai’s. Sarai, responding to the treatment she received from Hagar, amazingly blames Abram saying, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me." Wow…Sarai came up with the plan and urged Abram to play his part in it and then blames him for it not working out right. Abram puts it back on Sarai, telling her to deal with Hagar as she sees best. And this was probably not the best thing to do either given the circumstances as they were but that’s the way things went with the problem spiraling ever downward and worsening. Sarai mistreats Hagar who flees from her into the desert. It’s at this point that the Lord had seen enough. It was time for Him to intervene and set things straight.
First, an angel of the appears to Hagar and tells her to return to Sarai and submit to her but he also adds a promise for Hagar saying, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count…You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." Hagar is given the assurance that the son she will bear will not end up forsaken but instead will carry on a line of descendants that "will be too numerous to count." In chapter 17, Abram asks that Ishmael live under God’s blessing and God assures Abram that he will. Hagar responds by acknowledging that she has had a special encounter with the Lord saying, "You are the God who sees me…I have now seen the One who sees me." She goes on to bear her son and obediently gives him the name Ishmael just as God had commanded. The story ends up having a happy ending.
One can’t think how this might have went had Sarai just went before God in prayer and asked His will. After all, it ended up being God who entered in to fix the mess she created anyways. We would be well served to learn from Sarai’s mistake so we don’t end up repeating it. Always allow God to lead and guide you through whatever the circumstance. He will never steer you wrong.
In Christ,
Mark
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