Human Desire and our Own Understanding

 Read Genesis 16

 So, Abram’s wife told her husband to sleep with this girl and have a kid together.  How many of us guys haven’t been through the same thing? OK, it never happens like that these days but it did for Abram and the next thing you know the whole mess was Abram’s fault.  It does answer the age-old question:  Why do husbands die before their wives.

Because they want to.  There is no solving this what a woman is thinking mystery in this age or any age before.

That’s not the point of this message.  What is?

Did Abram know that this was not what God intended when he got Hagar pregnant?

If we look at the previous chapter, Abram is complaining to God that he has no kids and is at a loss as to how God will fulfill his promise to him.  Abram is worried that all he has acquired will just be passed on to his chief servant.

But God told him that his servant would not be his heir.  His heir would be his own flesh and blood.  So, in Abram’s defense, God didn’t say directly that your heir will come from you and your wife but will be of your own blood.

OK, so this side chick shuffle with Hagar might be ok with God.  Maybe?

Then the tension starts. Hagar is feeling that she has some pull in this family now.  She can do what she wants.  She is carrying the family heir in her womb.

She probably pushed the limits a bit too far and Sarai had enough of her.  So what does Sarai do?  She blames her husband for the whole mess.  I said that we were not going to talk about this but it just keeps coming up.

Here’s the part to think about.  Sarai confronted her husband and said that this stuff can’t continue.  Abram responded by telling Sarai to do whatever she wanted with Hagar.

Now, let’s stop and think for a moment.  Put yourself in Abram’s shoes and think.

So, did Abram think that Hagar’s child (later to be called Ishmael) was the child of the promise or not? If this really was the promised heir—and Abram was sure of it, would he dismiss the woman who carried this special child so easily?

Was she the one who carried the heir promised by God or just a side chick that’s about to get kicked to the curb? It’s one or the other.  You can’t sit on the fence here.

Do you think that Abram would dismiss her so easily if she carried this promised child? Did the father of many nations promise rest with Hagar?

So, did Abram know that this was not the path directed by the Lord when he conceived a child with Hagar, or was there some epiphany along the way? It’s not like a lot of time passed—the kid wasn’t even born yet. The bun was still in the oven.

This whole having a kid with one of your maidservants was not a big deal at that time.  If you were a female servant in another’s household your duties were likely to cook, clean, shop, prepare food, do laundry, and on occasion jump in the sack with the old man.

That was the world of that age.  To which most girls said, “It’s good work if you can get it.”  It’s just the way it was.

If you signed on for the maidservant job without reading the full listing on Monster or Indeed, that was on you, but chances are you were doing some sack time with the old man. That was the world and the culture of the age.

But for Abram, a child meant a promise from God fulfilled.  This was a different deal for Abram from the onset.

This is purely speculation, but not unsupported speculation.  I think that Abram knew before the child was conceived that this was not the child promised by God.

Who would dismiss the woman who carried God’s promise so easily?

Let’s bring this home.  We could pick on Abram or Sarai all day, but let’s make some more personal application here.

How often do we know when we are venturing outside of God’s way?  How often do we say, “In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that,” when in foresight we already knew?

How many times have we said something that we wish we didn’t say—that we could take back—but in reality, we knew before we said it, not to say it.

The question for us in this age is:  Are we tuned into the Spirit that lives within us? Do we listen to that still small voice or do we shut it out in favor of hearing things that support only our own understanding?

Do we make it sound convincing enough to ourselves to go through with it, when if we were seeking God’s direction first in everything, we would have not gone down that path?

So I gave you plenty to think about without telling you the answers, but my questions suggest that we already know the answers more often than we think or say we do.

Maybe, some of our worst choices were made because we just ignored God’s still small voice in favor of our own understanding.

It’s something to think about.

Amen.