Valerie Rae Hanneman
Genesis 16: 1-2 (MSG) “Sarai, Abram's wife, hadn't yet produced a child. She had an Egyptian maid named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, "GOD has not seen fit to let me have a child. Sleep with my maid. Maybe I can get a family from her." Abram agreed to do what Sarai said.”
In one of my rare moments of domesticity I decided that I wanted to learn a certain type of needlepoint. That it was probably the most difficult style didn’t deter me - I was going to learn. A friend offered to teach it to me, so I went bought a kit. My friend was taking (in my opinion) too much time to get around to teaching me so I decided that I would read the instructions in the kit and teach myself to do it. So needle in hand, I took the first stitch. My first one looked just like the illustration, so I boldly took the second stitch, the third one and the fourth one. The fourth one wasn’t in the right place, so I pulled it out and redid it. Now there was a little hole in the material - but that would probably go away. I placed another series of stitches then noticed that some of them were loose and some of them were tight, so I had to pull out a bunch of them and make them the same. The material was pretty holey now in that area so I switched over to a different section - and a different stitch. I tried to learn the new stitch, It was some sort of a knot and I had to take it out so many times an even larger hole was formed. Then to make matters worse, I jabbed myself with the needle and ended up bleeding all over the material. In disgust I threw out the kit - and never did learn to do that needlepoint.
God had promised Abram a son, and had told him that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars. This was a pretty incredible promise because Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren. A little bit of time passed and Sarai decides that God needs a little help. She gave Abram her maid, Hagar, to get pregnant for her. Abram agreed (apparently Hagar had little if any choice) and Hagar got pregnant. Troubles started immediately as a jealous Sarai and a snotty Hagar started to clash. Shortly thereafter, Ishmael was born. When Ishmael was about 11 God came to Abram again, changed his name to Abraham, changed Sarai’s name to Sarah and repeated the promise of a son. Abraham started talking about Ishmael, and God responded that Ishmael was not the one - that the promise would be fulfilled through Sarah’s son. God then promised that Ishmael would be the father of 12 rulers (Genesis 17:20). About a year later Isaac was born and trouble erupted again. Jealousies caused Sarah to demand that Hagar and Ishmael be put out of the camp. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain for Abraham. When my daughter went into Americorps and was sent to other side of the country I thought I was going to cry until she came back - and I did cry a lot during that year from missing her so much. How much worse it must have been for Abraham to send his son away from him forever. (The next time that Ishmael & Abraham are shown in the same place is at Abraham’s funeral)
I took matters into my own hands with the needlepoint instead of waiting for the person who knew what they were doing to come and show me what I needed to know. I ended up with a great big mess that I ended up throwing away and I never did learn to do the needlepoint.
Sarah knew that God had promised Abraham a son. But when that son did not appear fast enough for her she took matters into her own hands - with Abraham’s willing participation. And when Hagar was pregnant peace departed for good from Abraham’s home. The rivalry between Sarah and Hagar was so intense that Hagar ran away. Although the Word doesn’t say so - is there much doubt that after Ishmael’s birth the rivalry continued? I wonder how Sarah reacted when Abraham spent his time with that son of a slave woman. When Abraham played baseball with Ishmael, did Hagar shoot Sarah a niener-miener-niener look? How many times did Abraham try to maintain the peace between them? How successful do you think he was?
The when Ishmael was thirteen the child of promise, Isaac, was born. The problems escalated to the point where Sarah demanded that Ishmael be sent away with his mother. And that is what happened. But even with Ishmael’s absence peace did not come back to Abraham. He loved Ishmael - how often did he grieve for him? How often did he look at his wife and feel anger at her over her jealousy. How often did he see people approaching his camp and his heart would leap with the hope that they had news of Ishmael.
All of this pain, discontent and jealousy because Sarah and Abraham could not wait for the One who knew what He was doing to act in His own time. They took matters into their own hands and a lifetime of chaos, pain and grief were what they got for it.
And the chaos, pain and grief did not end. In Genesis 37:25-27, Joseph is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. The Ishmaelites bought him and took him to Egypt. Ishmael was the father of twelve rulers (or tribes). Jacob, Isaac’s son, was also the father of twelve tribes. Jacob’s sons, the grandchildren of Isaac, the child of promise, established the nation of Israel. Ishmael’s sons established the nations of the Arab world. The anger and hatred between Abraham’s son, Ishmael and Abraham’s son, Isaac, that destroyed the peace of Abraham’s camp, continues to destroy the peace in the Middle East today.
I wonder how different the world would be today if Abraham and Sarah had not taken matters into their own hands.
God’s job is to reign over the universe and to reign over eternity. He has control of everything, and He is doing a great job of it. We don’t need to interfere with His job.
Our job is to worship Him, serve Him and grow within Him. I bet He wishes we would do more of our job and less of His.
Father, You are God. You don’t need my help in running anything. When I start to take matters into my own hands - remind me to mind my own business - which is to worship, serve and grow.
Contact Valerie or sign up for the FFBC e-Ministries at valerie@fresnofirst.org
Posted by Valerie at March 17, 2006 12:37 PM