Genesis 16:1 Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
Aren’t there are lot of things in life you just don’t understand? Many times, things just don’t make sense to us. We can’t see or comprehend them. Sometimes, we have a promise from God, but we don’t see how God is going to keep His promise. Therefore, we try to make things happen on our own.
One such case was with two wonderful people, Abraham and Sarah, who did a really bad thing. God had promised them a son, but God had delayed the giving of that son. So, Abraham and Sarah became restless, then impatient, and then, I think, a little panicked.
First, Abraham said to God, “Perhaps you should take my servant, and he can be the heir you have promised.” God said, “No, the son I am going to give you is going to come from you.” Then, in Genesis 16:1 it says, “Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children.” This is just to follow up on an introduction to Sarah where the Bible makes it clear that Sarah could not have children even thou God has promised them a son.
Now, Sarah had a handmaid, an Egyptian named Hagar. Well, Sarah suggested to Abraham that he take Hagar as a second wife, and that, perhaps, through Hagar the child of promise would be born.
How could such good people have such a horrible idea? One of the reasons that such great people could do such a wicked thing is because this was a custom widely accepted in their day. It was accepted. There is no low to how far you will go when the culture calls the shots. It is amazing the bad things we can do when they are generally accepted by everyone else in our day. If the culture calls the shots instead of the eternal principles of God’s Word, then we are in trouble.
So, what came of all this? Well, Abraham had Ishmael by Hagar, and God told Hagar that He would “multiply thy seed exceedingly, that is should not be numbered for multitude.” God was going to take care of Ishmael, but it certainly complicated things. It was a disaster for Abraham’s marriage in many ways, and it was not God’s plan. The takeaway is that when we do not walk and live by faith we tend to complicate things to the level of our own understanding. People make their lives so complicated, mixed up, and convoluted not because they are walking by faith, but because they are walking by sight and trying to do things that only God can do.
Now we ought to be doing our part. When God commands us to do something we should take action, but we should do it in dependence upon God. We cannot trust our senses.
Sometimes we say, “Well, this doesn’t make sense to me.” Of course it doesn’t make sense to you because it is not something that can be perceived by one of your five senses. You can’t see one mile or one day down the road, yet we pretend to know more than God Who is eternal, dwells in Heaven, can see the beginning from the end, and with Whom time and borders mean nothing. God is an infinite God. He has a perspective that you and I could never have. We have an ant’s perspective, while God has God’s perspective.
Today, put your faith in God. When we try to make things happen instead of trusting God, we complicate things to the level of our understanding instead of seeing things open up to the level of God’s ability, God’s goodness, and God’s understanding.