Genesis 16:1-3. 1Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children…3So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.
There is ten years between Genesis 15 and 16. It has been ten years since God told Abraham that he would have a son. Lot is gone, and Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, won’t be his heir, Abraham will have his own baby son. But what God did NOT say is that this baby boy would come from his wife, Sarah. Remember, Sarah cannot have children, so it would take a miracle for her to have a baby. Well, it has been ten more years and no miracle has happened. And we can see that Sarah is pretty angry with God, she is blaming God – the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.
So Abraham and Sarah decide to come up with their own plan to have a baby. Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they decide to use their own “good idea” instead of continuing to trust God. Now, this “good idea” that they have can sound very strange to us. Sarah decides to have Abraham marry her servant Hagar. Hagar is younger and can still have children, so Abraham should have two wives. I know this sounds weird, and it is. Today, it is against the law for a person to have more than one spouse (husband or wife). But back in Abraham’s day it was sort of common.
Of course, Abraham and Sarah’s plan is a really bad idea. It’s definitely not God’s plan, and it’s not from faith in God. Abraham marries Hagar because he is impatient. Sarah suggests that Abraham marry Hagar, because she is angry and afraid. Both Abraham and Sarah think that they can come up with a better plan than God.
The next couple verses in Genesis 16 tell us that Hagar does become pregnant. Hagar then starts bragging and looking down on Sarah. Then Sarah starts being mean to Hagar. Abraham does nothing about any of this, so Hagar ends up running away.
Genesis 16:6. Then Sarai dealt harshly with [Hagar], and she fled from her.
This sad story is a lesson for us in what can happen when we try to do things our own way (self-effort) rather than God’s way (faith). Abraham didn’t talk to God about this plan, and I’m pretty sue Sarah didn’t either. The truth is that they are both really tired of waiting for God to do what he promised he would do.
And when we stop trusting God and try to do things our own way, we usually start to hurt other people. Doing things our own way from our own self-effort (trying to get what we want on our own) often just ends up hurting someone else. In the book of James in the New Testament, he says that we have quarrels and fights with each other because we don’t talk to God and trust him to give us what we need. Instead, we use other people to get what we want and need, but then that usually leads to frustration and fighting.
Maybe you can see this happening in your life. Have you been fighting with anyone lately? Are you expecting them to give you something that only God can give you? Have you talked to God about it? Have you asked him for what you want and need, and then trusted him to give you what is best?
How do we know that God will always give us what we need, what is best for us? Because he already has – Jesus. When God sent Jesus to us to die for us, he sent us all that we need to be saved from our sin and selfishness. And when God sent Jesus to us to live in our hearts, he gave us everything we need in order to do what is right, and trust him. With Jesus, God gave us love and patience and hope so that we don’t ever have to put our hope in our own really bad ideas ever again.
You: Try to think of something that you try to get from other people that you can only get from God. How might expecting things from people lead to anger and frustration?
You with Jesus: How does Jesus give us everything we need and a lot of what we want?
Prayer: Father, when I get angry at people like Sarah did with Hagar, it is usually because I wanted something that only you could do for me. Help me to always go to you first and let Jesus be all I need. Amen.
TLICfamily 