I'll Do It Myself

Introduction

Patience is a virtue it is said. But patience is difficult at best. Children are prone to be impatient. Often children say I will do it myself and then we know how that turns out. Trips are often highlighted with the question “how much longer?” Microwaves are a routine part of life. We live in an impatient society. We don’t like to be kept waiting by our doctor, our mechanic, or the cable repairman. Patience is indeed a virtue. Some view patience as a sign of weakness. Some believe that tolerating suffering or inconvenience without losing one’s cool is weakness. Some demand to dealt with first before everyone else. How long should one wait for an answer from God? How long is long enough?

Consider Abram and his wife Sarah. At age 75, Abram had been promised a child. This was not an ordinary promise. This was a promise made by the God of this world. This promise was not begged for; it was offered graciously and freely. Sarah at age 65 would no longer be the recipient of the pity glances. She would have the child who would increase her status with her husband and with other women. With great hope they left their homeland and became wanderers in a foreign land. They had their ups and downs, but they held onto the promise. How long should they wait for the promise to be fulfilled? It is easy for us to say they should wait as long as necessary. Do you think 10 years is long enough?

Let me put it another way. Can you wait 10 years for God to solve a problem before you wrestle it away from him so you can solve it? Can you wait 10 months? 10 hours? 10 minutes? Before we condemn Abram and Sarah, let’s make sure that we understand that this story is intended to not only show us something about God, but it is intended to show us something about human beings in general. It is challenging to wait; to not lose our cool when things are not going well; to practice patience.

The Dilemma

Sarah is unable to have children. 10 years have passed since the promise. She and Abram have been trying for a number of years to have a child. Furthermore, God’s promise has been their security for all those years. So Sarah decides that she needs a surrogate, someone who will take her place. This was a common practice among the nations. Women unable to have children used slave girls as surrogates. Sarah’s attitude in verse 2 is best described as “so much for promises.” Whatever God had promised before means nothing now. Have you ever given up on God? Have you ever wondered where was God’s presence when everything was falling apart?

In Sarah’s situation having children validated your life. There was nothing more important than having a child to carry on your husband’s family name. Nothing more important than giving birth to a child who would inherit the blessing of your family.

God had failed to carry through with his promise. In Sarah’s situation we might have tried to fix things. Trying to fix things as she did is not the best solution, but this is a desperate woman. Desperate to have a child and desperate to fulfill her role.

Don’t be too hard on Sarah. Desperation makes us all a little strange. Maybe Sarai is feeling tremendous guilt. Maybe she is thinking that she is the problem. Maybe God is punishing them because of Egypt. Maybe they misunderstood God’s promise. In our desperation we must realign with God. Desperation leads to wrong thinking and actions.

So Sarah offers her slave girl as a surrogate mother. Abram accepts Sarah’s plan and indeed impregnates Hagar. Notice that Hagar is not consulted or engaged in this story. She is a slave and has few rights. Verse 3, she is taken and given and Abram slept with her. Hagar realizing that she is pregnant plays the role for all its worth. Sarah may be older, she may be mistress, she may be married to Abram, but she is childless. Pregnant by Abram makes Hagar feel superior. And her new attitude grows as the child grows inside of her. Sarah quickly senses the change in attitude and in her well devised plan she had not factored in her emotional response.

So Sarah does the only rational thing—she blames her husband for her discomfort. Abram is caught in the middle. Trying to please his wife he agrees to let her have her way. He does what Sarah wanted him to do. Things are working well. A child is going to be born. But Sarah is still dissatisfied. Now Abram is blamed for following the plan. So Abram does the only rational thing—he takes no responsibility. God’s promises were always made to Abram. For a man who heard the promises with his own ears he didn’t take a stand of faith. He took the path of least resistence and it cost him.

Where is Abram’s faith? Where is his leadership? We are allowed to see Abram’s weakness again. Trusting in God is a tall order. Instead of providing leadership and assurance to trust God to fulfill his promises in his time we have him giving up and turning everything over to Sarah.

This is not chauvinistic. This is the matter of faith. Abram displays a lack of faith. No clear direction and focus. 10 years is a long time to wait. He has let the earthly wisdom overrule his heavenly wisdom. Sarah’s plan seems good to him, but the path of least resistance doesn’t demonstrate faith. As Ronald Wallace says, “sometimes God has to allow us to prove ourselves fools through our own mistakes.” Abram substitutes that which is second best hoping that it will produce the real thing. It doesn’t.

Sarah does what seems right to her. She mistreats Hagar. Hagar flees from Abram’s camp. She is headed back home. This Egyptian will escape Hebrew oppression and return to the promised land. But the story doesn’t end here. Abram and Sarah have clearly demonstrated their lack of faith. They have taken matters into their own hands and as a result the man of faith has shown himself to faithless. How long are you supposed to wait for God to fulfill his promises? How long would you wait?

God Sees

Hagar is out in the desert. She doesn’t know what could have gone wrong. She was just a pawn in Abram’s camp. A slave to Sarah. Slept with her master. Knowing that to stay might result in her losing her baby. And it is hers. It is abundantly clear that Abram as the father doesn’t intend to take care of this child. Sarah for whom Hagar was the surrogate doesn’t want the child. It is her child. How alone and isolated Hagar must feel. Left to fend for herself in the wilderness. No support. She will return to Egypt with not much hope of anything better than being a slave to someone else.

But the one person who has been forgotten has seen all that has happened. The one person who was never consulted; the one person who has been ignored is still very much aware of Hagar’s stop at a lonely deserted well in the middle of the desert. Although Hagar is afraid, alone, forgotten, and abused, God hasn’t left her. In fact, God gives to Hagar some pretty unbelievable promises. She is to go back to Sarah and have her baby there. Like Abram her descendants will be too numerous to count. She will name the boy Ishmael which means “God hears.” He will be a vigorous man living in constant conflict.

Hagar hears these words and is so overwhelmed that she gives God the name, “God sees.” By naming God, Hagar is making a pronouncement of faith and dependence. She is committing her life to this God who has seen her affliction and answered her. Hagar goes back to Sarah. Verse 15 tells us that Abram named the boy Ishmael. We might assume that he just thought that name up. But more than likely Abram knows the name because of Hagar’s story.

Imagine the scene, Hagar comes walking back into camp several days after leaving. When she arrives, Sarah is still angry, but this time she comes with a story of faith in the God who sees. Abram listens to the story and is convinced that his God has appeared to Hagar. Two things happen. First, Abram is assured. Second, Abram is shamed. He had forgotten God and he acted in ways that demonstrated that he had forgotten God. According to 21:11, Ishmael is accepted as his son.

So What?

So what are we to learn from this? First, when we want something in the worst way, our thinking and actions can be messed up. Sometimes we get fixated on a goal. The goal may or may not be good for us, but eventually it isn’t the goal which matters it is the having something. This is what Sarah and Abram did. They wanted a son. A good thing. But they got so caught up in having the son that they quit thinking right. They quit trusting God and took matters into their own hands. Such messed up thinking resulted in disappointment, confusion, shame, and heartache. All of which could have been avoided if they had maintained their focus.

Sometimes we are just like that. We get so concerned about thinking what we are supposed to have that we lose focus. Our thinking gets skewed. We begin to tell ourselves that we deserve and should have the goal. But all the while it suddenly becomes a matter of what we want and not what God wants.

God wanted Sarah to have a child. She wanted a child in the worst possible way. She paid a terrible price to have the child. But the child was to be a result of God’s initiative. Sarah forgot that and traded her faith in God for what she could do.

Second, this story teaches us something about patience. It is hard to know sometimes when we are supposed to wait and when we are supposed to get up and act. Looking back on Abram and Sarah it becomes easy for us to say they should have waited; after all, God had promised them a child. But what about God’s promises to us? Are we any different in learning to wait?

God promises to never leave us or forsake us; therefore, we are to be content with what we have (Hebrews 13:5). That is easy to read and say but difficult to act upon. Faith learns to wait on God.

God promises that he sees all things and will deal with injustices; therefore, we are to leave it to God to deal with (Romans 12:19). That is easy to read and say but difficult to act upon. Faith learns to wait on God.

Galatians 5 teaches us that God through the work of the Holy Spirit is trying to help us develop patience in our lives. Throughout that chapter the point is made time and again that the Spirit’s desire and our desires are in conflict. Paul instructs that we have to cooperate with the Spirit’s work. When patience comes, then praise God that his work is being fulfilled in us. To pray for God to have his way in your life is to guarantee that situations and circumstances will arise that demands that we cooperate with God. Patience is learned through times of testing.

The final lesson is that God is sovereign. The whole story of Abram is a story of learning that very lesson. For most of us we have to spend a lifetime learning that lesson as well. In this case, God blessed Hagar in spite of Abram’s foolishness and lack of faith. Such is not always the case. But notice that the blessing did not leave the faithless Abram and the vicious Sarah. Hagar’s blessing came back in the midst of trial and suffering. Perhaps that is the hardest lesson of all. Faith learns to trust God who sees all and deals with all things in his time. Invitation.

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