Devotionals

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Sensing God's promise in my spirit, I anxiously await it's fulfillment. And I wait and wait. Maybe God needs a little help. So I begin thinking about ways I can speed the process on using my own will and intelligence to bring about the promised fulfillment. But often my best intentions have long, lingering consequences I have not foreseen.

Just like Abram and Sarai, for example. God had promised them a child in their old age. But time was slipping by and no new life stirred in Sarai's womb. So Sarai comes up with a plan.

"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, 'The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.' Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived." (Genesis 16:1-4)

In Bible times a concubine (a slave acting as wife) was considered the norm. When a concubine provided children for the master, those children would be a part of the master's heritage. And, in fact, were considered legally to be the wife's children. Thus entered Hagar, Sarai's answer to meeting their needs.

But in God's timing, about thirteen years later, God miraculously fulfilled His promise and Isaac was born to 90 year old Sarai, becoming Sarah. Sarah's impatience resulted in two heirs, Ishmael and Isaac, creating dissension from then on. For only Isaac would fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant. Ishmael came into the world by natural means, but Isaac by supernatural. Ishmael became the father of Arabs, most of whom are Muslim today. Isaac became the father of Jews. The resulting conflict between Jews and Arabs which started in Biblical times, 4000 years ago, continues to this day.

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