Genesis 16, Emotional Women, and Bert

Shouldn't that read: Uni-brow? I"m just saying...

Hello. I'm Travis Hendley. Welcome to SoWhat Blogstreet. Today's blog is sponsored by the letter T, the number 52 and Bert's uni-brow.

When we last left Abram, God had unequivocally and unilaterally promised to bless Abram. God said that Abram's descendants would inherit a specific land. God also promised that he would give children to he and his wife from which would come a great nation. Abram believed God's promises, becoming the father of righteousness by faith. It all is going so well. Abram trusts God. God promises to bless Abram. Surely now for the rest of his life Abram will walk with God in uninterrupted faith, obedience, holiness, and surrender, right? At this point it is a safe bet that Abram is going to set the standard for trusting God and obeying him, right? Right?!

Uh oh. Bert and his creepy uni-brow tell me that's not how it works out. Dang! I knew I should have invited Ernie instead. Bert's such a buzz-kill. Oh well. Let's see what happens in Genesis 16:1-16

"And Sarai said to Abram, 'Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.' And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai." (v2). 

Sarai, seeing that God had not given them the child that was promised, figures out a way to make God's plans come to fruition on her own. Sarai assumes that if Abram just has a child through someone in the household, (in this case, Sarai's servant), then God's covenant promises will still find fulfillment, (even though the Lord never mentioned anything about impregnating the hired help). Abram, instead of reminding his wife of the promises and faithfulness of God, listens to his wife. Abram sleeps with the servant girl, Hagar, (who by the way is an Egyptian, and not of the covenant people of God. Oops). Voila, Hagar is pregnant.

If you're taking notes at home, or just copying my notes, pay attention to what happened here:
- We can get ourselves in trouble when we start figuring out God's will on our own. In other words, you may have a horrible job, (ahem), you may hate your day to day experience at work, and want something better for your life. You figure God wants you to be happy and have a better job with better pay so you can better provide for your family and be more satisfied in the process. So...you decide to suddenly quit your job and become an artist in the assumption/hope that God will make it all work out for you in the end. That's not faith, that's presumption.
Or, you may be deeply in love with your significant other. You know sex outside of marriage is against God's command, but you figure, 'Hey, we love each other and we're going to get married eventually," so you have sex, hoping/trusting/assuming God will be cool with it. The lesson to learn here is don't act outside of the known and revealed will of God and don't act in the hope God will bless something he has not condoned.
- Do you remember anywhere else in the Bible, in Genesis, in the beginning, where a man listened to his wife instead of following the voice of God and it got everyone into a whole big pile of trouble? I'll give you a hint: their names rhyme with SmAdam and SmEve. Adam listened to the voice of his wife, who had listened to the voice of the serpent and the whole world fell apart because of sin. Adam and Eve didn't listen to God and look what happened. Now, Abram, given a chance to trust God, lead his wife, and remind Sarai of God's promises and faithfulness, fails. He listens to Sarai and sleeps with her servant and it's about to become a huge problem. Now I'm not saying it's wrong to listen to your wife, or your spouse, or good friends. Lord knows I listen to my wife a good bit because she's smarter than me, (it's true). The problem is when you start listening to others, whoever they may be, whose council is contrary to the revealed will of God. Abram had the promises of God that he would give life to Sarai's womb and give them both a child who would receive the blessings and promises God had given. God never said anything about impregnating their servant. Sarai tried to outsmart God, tried to help God, and gave bad council. Abram failed to lead and correct her and bad things happened. So we have here a replica of the original fall of Adam and Eve. Surely replicating the Fall of man will lead to good results, right?

Bert and his angry eyebrow say "no." Let's see what happens.

"And he, (Abram), went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, 'May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!' But Abram said to Sarai, 'Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.' Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her."

Abram has sex with Sarai's mistress, Hagar. Hagar, now carrying Abram's child looks contemptuously upon Sarai. Sarai gets upset and demands Abram do something. Abram, exercising leadership in his household, (NOT), tells Sarai to do whatever she wants to with the poor impregnated servant girl.

Trav's thoughts:
- Funny how circumventing the will of God doesn't work out, huh?
- Funny how letting your husband sleep with another woman is a bad idea, huh?
- Abram is caught in the middle of an angry wife and a pregnant and emotional concubine. O.M.G. Now Abram has an angry and jealous spouse. I'm sure Abram's thinking, "THIS WAS YOUR IDEA!" Abram, in classic guy form, tells his wife he'll do whatever she wants to do. Let it be noted that Abram fails to lead his wife and care for the mother, (Hagar), of his child. Again, three cheers for rebellion against God's plan and trying to figure things out on your own!!!

Up to this point man, woman, and servant girl have all handled the situation poorly. Sarai didn't trust God, Abram didn't trust God and lead his wife, and Hagar disrespected the woman of the house, (which is always a very bad idea). All of this is a mess worthy of a daytime soap opera.

Enter God in verses 7-16, (thank goodness). Hagar runs away, pregnant and nauseous. (Okay I made up the nauseous part, but it's a fair assumption). She's worried, scared, and alone. She has no where to go. She is the victim of bad choices of many, including herself. But as always, just like in the garden, just like with Cain and Abel and every other time man messed things up, God enters the picture to try and help and save humankind. God finds Hagar and blesses her. He tells her to go back to Sarai and submit to her. He also tells her that he will make her offspring a great nation that cannot be counted. Her offspring will have a similar blessing to Abram's offspring, but her offspring is going to be set against Abram's descendants in a very violent way. So God intervenes to help and care for Hagar, because he is a gracious and tender God. On the other hand, Abram and Sarai's lack of faith and obedience is going to produce big problems down the road for all parties involved. Lesson to be learned: Sin has consequences. You cannot spite God's will and escape without reaping the consequences of your actions. Ouch.

Wow. What a downer of a blog that was, right? You know what we need? We need a happy story about God and Abram. We need something to get us back on track. Stay tuned for the next blog and we'll see what happens. In the meantime, let's see if we can't find a funny picture that messes with Bert's unibrow...

Ahh, that's better.