Genesis 16: Plan B

Have you ever noticed that we get in trouble when we think we know better than God?  For instance, disregarding God's rules because we don't think that they should apply to us, or assuming we know how to fix a problem better than God does?  Usually, the mess just gets bigger and we dig a deeper hole.  Abram's wife, Sarai, makes that unfortunate discovery in Genesis 16.

Knowing that God has promised Abram a son (in Genesis 15), Sarai apparently does not believe that the promise extends to her.  Abram may believe God, but Sarai does not.

So Sarai comes up with a Plan B.  If she cannot give Abram the child he desires, perhaps her maidservant Hagar can.  I wonder if this even sounded like a good idea at the time?  It must have to Abram, who apparently didn't take too much convincing to take Sarai up on her offer.  In a short amount of time, Sarai's plan works and Hagar is pregnant.

But Sarai's plan was not God's plan.  Life quickly becomes miserable for Sarai.  Where she had expected to find joy through her husband having a child, she instead finds grief as her maidservant now lords it over her.  In response, Sarai mistreats Hagar so that she flees for a time.

Yet God demonstrates that He is able to take even the broken shards of our ambitions and use them in a beautiful mosaic of His own design.  There is no Plan B with God.  The loose thread of Abram's relationship with Hagar will be woven into the tapestry of history.  Their son, Ishmael, will also go on to have descendants too numerous to count.  He will be blessed as a child of Abram.

However, even then it was clear that Ishmael's legacy would be one of tension and violence towards others in the human family.  According to Genesis 16:12: "He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”  When we consider that Ishmael went on to be the father of the Arabs, and thus the Muslim faith, it is amazing how prescient these words were!