“So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife.”
Genesis 16:3
Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, and still had no son to inherit this land God had promised. Tired of waiting for a miracle, Abram and Sarai took matters into their own hands, and used Sarai’s servant as the means of birthing a child. However, their decision created a dangerous equation.
Hagar was an Egyptian slave, acquired as a result of Abram’s lies. When you do the math: Egypt’s disaster plus the folly of trying to produce a miracle without the power of the Creator, the sum will undoubtedly equal failure. History proves that the prophecy spoken to Hagar about her son, Ishmael (17:12) has been fulfilled through his descendants to this day.
Over the years, I too have been tempted to take matters into my own hands. In fact, at the time I wrote this entry in my journal, my husband and I were in the midst of a shattering, prolonged wait between jobs. We were longing for the “perfect” door to open. Why not simply create that textbook opportunity? We could easily make it happen. But we remembered this story, and said to ourselves, “Let’s not create another Ishmael.” And, I am so grateful we waited for Isaac!
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