Abram is a real guy. That’s certainly what we can derive from what’s written about him in scripture.
It takes faith to trust God to leave his family. Abram exercises that faith. At the same time, he’s also anxious enough to cover himself when it comes to his wife in Egypt. Faith to believe God and yet still needing to lie to Pharaoh about the real identity of is beautiful Sarai.
This pattern of trust and flaws becomes even more evident with two remarkable episodes in Abram’s life.
The first is an encounter he has with God where Abram, like a true man aware of his lifespan, suggests to God that He might as well let the promised lineage go on through his servant, seeing as though he’s no spring chicken and his wife is hardly at the age of childbirth. This degree of refreshing honesty and openness to God is something that we should find refreshing. It lets us know that we have that element in which we can be honest with God about how we see our circumstances. God has no problem with that. Indeed God uses the opportunity to reaffirm the word He has given to this wealthy wanderer. Not only that, but He also lets Him know what will happen to his descendants hundreds of years in the future.
What a remarkable encounter of the divine kind. What an amazing thing for Abram to take part in and yield himself to. Honest conversations with God where his limited perspective on what he sees today is thrust into the hands of the Almighty and Eternal God who has a wider perspective. What a privilege for Abram.
It makes the following episode recorded all the more sad.
Abram heard the reassurance that his own flesh and blood will indeed come about and will indeed take the promised land. He has heard this. Yet as soon as his wife states that they might as well use Hagar to get this baby thing going, Abram is ready to agree to this. It’s remarkable. It’s like the garden of Eden all over again. It’s one thing for the wife to make a suggestion, it’s another completely for the husband to prefer to go with that word than the one that he has got from the God with whom he’s had such an amazing encounter.
It sounds like a relatively logical conclusion to reach. Sarai doesn’t feel up to it. Doesn’t feel like she can do this. Hagar is evidently more ready for this. It will still be Abram’s flesh and blood. So they can help proceedings. And it’s Abram that the responsibility is squarely with. It is Abram who had the word of instruction. It is Abram who plays the key part in the affair. It is Abram who thus takes matters into his own hands. It is a decision that has repercussions that ripple throughout the centuries to this day.
Even with that, however, he does not disqualify himself from the purpose and plan of God. The tension of the decision to take Hagar is apparent from the time of the birth of Ishmael, but it is not as though Abram turns his back on God. It’s not as though this is the end as far as God is concerned with Abram. God has mercy and Abram still endeavours to follow what God instructs.
This is the kind of thing about Abram, though, that reflects as well as reveals why we need God’s help to be faithful to God. We are capable of faithfulness on our best days. We’re also capable of unfaithfulness on other days. God will not go back on His word, but can we say the same for our own commitment to Him?
God have mercy on us as we appreciate those precious encounters we have with God in prayer, His Word, by His Spirit and through experience. God have mercy on us so that when we slip we can return swiftly to God as the base for our decision-making. God have mercy on us so we will look to be wise in not taking matters into our own hands and making agreements that will go awry.
(Photo by Arto Marttinen on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
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