Year of the Bible: Part Two of Twelve Exemplo

The Temptation to Take Control.

Today's video is an overview of the Second half of Genesis. One story mentioned there is when Sarai gives her servant girl, Hagar, to Abram so they can produce the heir that God has promised. Sarai, likely tired of waiting for God to fulfill His promise, decides to take matters into her hands, presuming this might be what God intended all along.

This situation had to have been so hard on all the people involved. Abram and Sarai are waiting in a humanly impossible situation. They know they have a promise but cannot see how it could be fulfilled. After pondering what to do, Sarai has a "great idea"! She can become a mother by having a servant bear the child for them! Brilliant! The IVP Bible Background Commentary indicates that using a maidservant as "a surrogate for her own barren womb" would have been acceptable in that culture. A maidservant was seen as "Property and legal extensions of their mistress." So, what Sarai suggested was not necessarily odd.

Abram and Sarai, in their haste to see God's promise fulfilled, use their servant, Hagar. Sarai tells Abram to sleep with her maidservant to have the promised heir, and Ishmael was conceived. Hagar, in return, treats Sarai with contempt. Can you blame her? Sarai goes to Abram and complains about Hagar's attitude, and Abram tells her to do whatever she wants to do with Hagar. Sarai mistreats Hagar, and Hagar escapes by fleeing into the wilderness.

The challenge here is that God had made a promise, and He would do it His way. I don't know about you, but I am guilty of taking my circumstances into my hands and trying to fix them. We can safely assume that Sarai was trying to "help" God accomplish His plan.

Once Hagar gets pregnant with Abram's child, she gets quite an attitude of superiority toward Sarai. It is likely that she even mocked her for being barren. We don't get to see what happened, but the Baker Illustrated Bible says, "When she (Hagar) saw that she was pregnant, her mistress (Sarai) became contemptible to her." We can use our imagination to develop possibilities for how Hagar acted toward Sarai.

Question: Have you ever tried to force a promise from God to happen in your timing? Have you ever been the victim of someone's impatience in waiting on God?

Prayer Focus: Ask God to reveal His character to you as you wait for Him and the grace to "keep in step" with his timing.