(7) The Strength of a Father and a Son…

In my previous blog, I wrote about the promises and covenant God initially made with Abram who later becomes Abraham. One of the things that Abraham struggled with for probably decades of his life was that he had no son and no heir. In fact when God tells him about the "very great reward" (ch. 15) that he will be receiving, Abram replied with saying "O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"… Out of all the responses possible, he chose this and I'm sure it's because the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. There was something definitely stirring in his heart towards the fact that he was already around 80 years old without a son…time was ticking a long time ago. In fact, that watch should be pretty broken by now 🙂

I personally haven't spent a ton of my life thinking about having an heir but I do know the struggle of wondering if I'll ever have my own child. It's probably not the right time to go into detail with that but you can search through old blogs or ask me if you're curious. Regardless, I've known that fear before so I can understand a bit of how that got blurted out in his response.

God responded back again that He was going to give Abram a child and that this Eliezer dude wasn't going to be his heir. This child was a promise.

…and time goes by…

                   …and some more time goes by…

                                                         …but still no son…

So, Abram does something that I can relate to. In fact, there's a really good chance you can too. Have you ever been promised something from God and had to wait for it? Abraham gets a bit squirrely and figures that while it was a promise that he was going to have a child, that maybe he's supposed to do something about it to make it happen. I mean Abram had wanted a child for decades and God Himself promised a child who would be his heir…and he didn't have long left to live, let alone have some children…What if others who knew him and had heard of the promise given to him by God found out that he still wasn't having children? How would Abraham defend  God then??

                                          Do you see that line of thinking?

Meanwhile, Sarai had her own thoughts dragging her down. I don't know if she felt as though she was the problem for not having children even knowing that God had promised her husband a child. Maybe she felt like there had to be another way. Maybe she saw that the promise coupled with no seemingly possible way for it to happen was ripping her husband apart. It later becomes obvious that she really didn't believe she could have children anymore with or without a promise from God…

Thoughts somehow became words which became discussions which became a plan of action…

The decision is made that Abram would start sleeping with Hagar, an Egyptian slave girl who helps out Sarai. Not long after, Hagar gets pregnant and Sarai does what most women would probably do in this situation; get overcome with bitterness and jealousy. Likewise, Hagar despises Sarai and tries to run away. The only reason she returns is that an angel of the Lord meets her, tells her she should go back and tells her about her son… he says:

That whole bit is important but if you look at the underlined comment, you find something that is important. When God blesses and puts His favor on a man, seemingly everything that comes out of him gets blessed (or perhaps magnified.) Despite the good or bad decisions, it affects a lot! You'll see this time and time again in the bible where the decisions of one man have ripples for eternity because God has put something special on him.

SO, Abram chooses to use his own strength to try to make a promise of God come to fruition. Ishmael, the son born out of his own strength and strategies has a blessing on him somewhat similar to "the promise" where his descendants would be too numerous to count. However, Ishmael and his descendants will constantly live in hostility with others. This hostility will pit the strength of men vs. the strength of other men…interesting!