Lesson on trusting God (Gen 16)—

Though Abraham received God’s promise of a son, after waiting nearly for 25 years, he, along with his wife Sarah has grown rather cynical about this ‘supposed promise from God’.  Even so, Abraham learns to wait on God and hold off his plans to make Eliezer his heir.  But, not for Sarah…she decides go take matters into her own hand.  Of course the outcome is disastrous!  The immediate consequences are the haunting feelings of her own insecurity [as the wife of Abraham] and of the alienation [both from Abraham and Hagar].  But, there's more severe consequence that comes centuries later.  Tradition tells us that Ishmael [Hagar's son] becomes the ancestor of Arabs, from where the religion of Islam comes from.  As I look our modern world, w/ all the bloody conflicts between Jewish/Christian and Arabs, I wonder had Sarah trusted in the Lord’s timing, if such struggles would be unknown in our history…such an enormous consequence of a simple minded wife w/ a desperate longing for a child!