God never vacillates
in His promise. He has a time and season for everything. Therefore we must be
patient and continue to trust that, in His good time He would bring every
promise to pass. It had been quite a while since God has promised Abram that he
would have a son with Sarai. These six verses show us how they tried to help God
out. What they did was in the energy of the flesh. We wonder why Sarai could
conceive such a scheme. We need to understand that it was allowable in ancient practice,
that when a woman was unable to conceive, she could have her maid take her
place to help produce a child on her behalf with her husband. We can understand
the plight of Sarai. She was barren and was disturbed by her inability to conceive.
It could well be that she felt she was a burden to Abram rather than an asset.
So she tried to help by offering her maid Hagar to take her place. This
Egyptian maid, as we have earlier said, was a gift given to Sarai by the Pharaoh
for attempting to violate her but was halted by God.
We can
understand where Sarai was coming from. But we cannot understand why Abram, a
man of faith could succumb to this suggestion. This is where we see the
truthfulness of God’s Word again. The flaw of Abram was not covered up. Here we
see Abram’s faith being tested again and he did not do so well. He acted in the
flesh without thinking of the implication. He had entirely forgotten what God
told him when he proposed that Eliezer should be his heir to the nation God
promised him. God explicitly told him that it was to be a son with Sarai. To
listen to Sarai now was unbelief on his part. Again he relied on his own
strength. Here is a reminder to us not to capitulate on the will of God and
resort to worldly device to fulfil God’s purpose and intent. When we do that we
will inherit a mountain of problems.
As it is, we see
the trouble starting here in verse 4. When Hagar, the Egyptian maid knew that she
was pregnant, she became prideful. She must have entertained the idea of an elevated
position and would be given more attention by Abram. So she held Sarai in contempt
and became haughty. Sarai could not
stomach her prideful attitude and put the blame on Abram for how Hagar had despised
her. Like Sarai, we can also be oblivious to our own flaw and start pointing
fingers. We must learn to own up to our own flaw because the first step to
change is to recognize our own flaw. As believers we should not resort to
finger pointing. It will cause further misunderstanding.
Abram of
course made it clear to Sarai that she had every right to deal with Hagar as
she deemed fit, for she was her maid. She
was in a position of authority and had the right to exercise whatever she felt
right. Sarai then made Hagar’s life so miserable, to the point that she could
bear it no longer. So she ran away from Sarai instead of living in submission to
her mistress. It’s never right to run away from a problem. When one take this
course of action the problem will remain unsolved, and the animosity would continue.
It will escalate tension to an unbearable situation. We should never capitulate
from a problem but seek to responsibly resolve it amiably, no matter how
difficult it may seem. Remember, faith does not only seek understanding, it
also seeks to be responsible!
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