The book of Genesis is full of incredible accounts of God visiting His chosen people! If you have not spent much time in Genesis, I would highly recommend a revisit sometime soon!

Abraham is considered the Father of the Israel people (as a child, I sang a song in Children’s Church called “Father Abraham had many sons” 🎵).

Abraham was quite up in his years when God told him that his wife (a woman who had never born a child) would give birth at the age of near 100.

Slight digression: my high school prom date just delivered his first child (a set of twins actually!) at the ripe age of 45…the mere thought left me exhausted!! Happy for him,but exhausted!! I thought 45 sounded old to begin parenting…and here Sarah is in her 90’s!!!

Back on track:

So…needless to say when the promise God gave to Sarah and Abraham was not fulfilled in their timeline➡️ Sarah took measures into her own hands and told her husband to go procreate with her maid so she could have a son that way.

Times were different then folks….this was an acceptable custom🤷

Hagar (the maid) gave birth to a son and named him Ishmael. This, in and of itself, is a whole story that won’t be unpacked here today.

God reminded Abraham and Sarah that it would be through Sarah that Abraham’s legacy would be given and not through their micromanaging that resulted in the birth of Ishmael.

Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son.

She names him Isaac~ which means laughter. Can you imagine the joy he must have given her???

Genesis 21:9-10

As time went on, Sarah saw Ishmael -the son of Hagar- mocking Isaac. Therefore, she said to Abraham, “Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.

AMP

This seems harsh, doesn’t it? Drive them out…

Abraham was, of course, distressed over this request. Ishmael was his son…no matter how or why he was conceived, Ishmael was his child- his firstborn even.

Sarah’s point was clear- Ishmael will not be an heir with my son.

God’s response to Abraham was pretty brutal in its honesty…

Genesis 21:12

Do not let it distress you because of Ishmael and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her and do what she asks, for your descendants will be named through Isaac.

AMP

God also informs Abraham, as a form of comfort perhaps, that a nation will be named through Ishmael as well. But that nation is not, and never was going to be, the nation that God had chosen to be His people.

Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away.

Talk about a mess of a situation.

This was the second time Sarah had cast aside Hagar- the first was told to us in Genesis 16. Sarah had told Abraham to lie with her maid and after he did….she got jealous because the maid got an attitude of superiority over achieving what Sarah could not.

Sarah got angry because Hagar had what Sarah had willingly given to her.

Here we are again with Ishmael and Isaac where the older brother picks on the younger… A repeat of a superiority complex maybe?

Regardless… the mother bear in Sarah wakes up and sees that Ishmael has got to go. Picking on her son was not going to happen…especially by someone who would ultimately feel entitled to receive all that would be given to Isaac. For Sarah- that would never happen.

In all honesty, that would never happen for God either.

God had a plan. He told Abraham (and Sarah) the plan. They chose a different route to bring that plan to fruition.

THEY changed the way the plan would occur…not God.

Their involvement led to a sticky situation.

If they would have KEPT THEIR HANDS OUT OF IT things would have been far less complicated.

“This complicated situation was part of the price Abraham had to pay for trying to bring about God’s promises in his own time”.

AMP Study Note

Wow.

Do you have difficulties in your life? If you are willing to be 100% honest could admit that there is a chance some of the complications are due to your own choices?

Ouch.

It is easy to blame God for the difficulties in our lives…He is sovereign after all. He is the Alpha and Omega.

But, like with Hagar, He didn’t make you choose certain behaviors that led to the place where you are right now.

He isn’t that kind of God.

A loving God lets His people choose to follow His wisdom and counsel.

A dictator makes puppets out of his followers- giving them no choice to make without a threat of punishment.

Every choice we make has a consequence~ either good or bad.

Every choice.

I ask again, is there a difficulty in your life that you are trying to entangle due to the complication you may have created on your own efforts?

Some complications are created by the efforts of others that we pay a price for…that we have either accept or work very hard to disentangle ourselves from.

I can’t help but think of the environment issues…I highly doubt the person who invented plastic bottles, pesticides, or exhaust fumes to ever dreamt they could impact our earth so negatively…Yet, here we are.

The important thing to remember is how God handled the “complication” (named Hagar and Ishmael): with mercy.

God always provided for them.

Did they receive the inheritance of Isaac? No…because that was never the plan. However, their role in that situation was not their fault either so God gave them a life in Egypt.

God continues to provide for us even as we create our own complications or begin to entangle ourselves from our self imposed complications.

God provides wisdom… medication…comfort…mercy…grace…forgiveness…LOVE.

If you find yourself in a place that you believe God did not intend for you to go, He WILL provide a way out and back to Him.

It may be painful…it may require humbling yourself in admittance that you made a mistake…it may take a sacrifice on your part to return to the pathway of peace…it might mean paying the penalty of the choice that had been made…

All the while~

You are still LOVED.

You are freed from shame.

You are made new.

You can be restored.

You are never alone.