Success Doesn't Equal Obedience: Genesis 16:1-3

If we set our mind to doing something and we accomplish it, that doesn’t make it God’s will.  People live by this logic all the time.  They claim if God didn’t stop them, He must be okay with it.  That’s simply not true.  God gives us free will to demonstrate our willingness to follow.  Inherent to the concept of free will is the freedom to choose contrary to God’s design and live out that desire. 

Abram, Sarai, and his household lived in Canaan for ten years once they settled there.  Still, there was no heir.  Still, God didn’t seem to be interested in upholding his end of the deal.  Abram and Sarai were well into their adult life at this point – some estimates declaring them close to eighty-five years old!

Can anyone fault Abram or Sarai for wondering what is taking God so long?  Certainly it is reasonable for a woman to expect the birth of a child to happen in the first couple decades of marriage.  Their impatience is not unreasonable; it is also misguided.

Sarai doubt and even blames God.  She accuses God of preventing her from bearing children.  This is a conclusion based on human logic, human timelines, and human understanding.  Sarai examines her situation through the eyes of human capability rather than through the lens of a God capable of creating a universe out of nothing.

I cannot fault Sarai for feeling this way.  I have grown impatient waiting on God for far less significant things than the birth of a child.  It is difficult for finite beings to comprehend the world from an infinite perspective.  That doesn’t justify our doubts, however.

Sarai begins to scheme.  She takes matters into her own hands.  Sarai tells Abram to produce an heir with her servant Hagar.

Under the marriage customs of that time, this would not have seemed odd.  Most ancient cultures understood that the head of household had a primary wife and produced heirs through her and through the household servants.  It was a way to populate the earth and make families significantly large in a relatively short time.  It’s certainly not God’s design for marriage, but among the communities of people not in relationship with God, it was a common practice.  As Abram and Sarai were from Ur and new to following God’s ways, Sarai’s response is logical.

Sarai is circumnavigating God’s promise by trying to force His hand.  That decision is rational, but not justifiable.  Still, God allows her plan to move forward!  Hagar conceives.  Sarai gets her wish.  When God has a plan and we fail to wait upon the Lord and allow Him to work, He can allow our scheme to move ahead, too.

We must be careful.  Sarai’s plan bore fruit, but it was outside the plan of God.  Sarai gets an heir, but that doesn’t imply obedience to the Lord.  If we set our mind to doing something and we accomplish it, that doesn’t make it God’s will.