Genesis 16

God makes His promises and calls man to wait in faith. We hear the Word of God and we know that the just shall live by faith, but we have our own ideas.

Sarai was a woman of faith (See Hebrews 11), but she struggled and she considered. Might there be some other way to achieve a godly purpose through a different method than she had earlier imagined? We do wonder how the Lord will bring about the blessings that He has announced.

Sarai had a plan that fit in well with contemporary customs. Hagar, Sarai's female Egyptian servant, could be the mother of children that Sarai had not been able to conceive. Legally the children would belong to Abram and Sarai. Could this be a way to achieve the promise since so many years had passed and Sarai had not yet been able to conceive? This would be a way for Sarai to have children... sort of.

That was Sarai's plan, and Abram listened to the voice of his wife. Hagar would be taken as a wife. The plan seemed to work at first. Hagar did conceive by Abram. But there were additional problems that Sarai had not foreseen. The dynamic between Sarai and Hagar had changed. Can a servant be given to a husband to serve as a wife without some serious problems developing between the two women? Hagar began to give Sarai some kind of evil eye, and Sarai did not appreciate the treatment.

Sarai blamed Abram for this trouble: “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” Wait, wasn't this her idea? Well, never mind. It had gone badly, and Sarai was mad at Abram because of it. Abram seemed to back away from all responsibility: “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” And so she did, harshly; and Hagar ran away.

God found Hagar. This is an amazing moment to consider. The child of Abram and Sarai would be the child of promise, not the child of Abram and Hagar. Yet the Lord had a plan for Hagar and for the child she carried.

The first step for Hagar in God's plan for the future involved going back to Sarai and submitting to her. Hagar would be Sarai's servant, despite the fact that she carried Abram's child. Meanwhile, the Lord had a future for the descendents of Abram through Hagar. God intended to multiply her offspring greatly.

The name of the son she was carrying would be Ishmael. God knew the affliction of Hagar. He listened and He cared. While Ishmael would be a man of controversy, assaulting those around him and facing the attacks of others, the descendants of Ishmael would thrive and have a future. The God who sees had seen this woman, and He had a plan for her. He acknowledged her, and she acknowledged Him. She had seen the messenger of the Lord, but she spoke as one who has seen God: “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”

This is a moment for future generations to remember like the announcement of the Lord to Adam and Eve after the Fall. Yes, the child will be a man associated with violence and trouble, but the Lord had seen Hagar, and somehow Hagar concluded that she had seen the Lord, and she knew that the Lord cared for her. To know this is to know blessing. To name the well in that place after the God who sees Hagar is to leave a testimony for future generations.

The God who sees is the God who rules. Hagar did bear Abram a son. Abram was moved by this experience that Hagar had with God, and so he named his son Ishmael according to the Word of the Lord.

Meanwhile, this child was still not the child of promise, and Abram was now eighty-six years old. The plan of Sarai worked only in that Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael. Abram and Sarai still did not bring about the blessing of God through their own intervention. They still needed to wait. They still needed to live by faith.

What is amazing is that the strange plan of Sarai and Abram involving Hagar and Ishmael is somehow a part of the eternal purpose of God, despite the fact that it was a fruit of human unbelief. God had a settled plan for the descendants of Ishmael. They would have a part to play in the affairs of men and nations for centuries to come. More important than even the conflicts that might exist between the descendents of Sarai and the descendants of Hagar, some of the people that would count Ishmael as their ancestor would one day claim a Jewish Messiah as their Savior and the Son of God.

This is a significant component of the eternal purpose of God, that some of the descendants of Hagar and Abram would be heirs of the promises of God and members of God's household through Jesus Christ. One Jewish Messiah has given His life to cover the sins of many descendants of Ishmael. Through faith in Christ, they have given up the bondage of sin and have been granted new freedom as sons of God through Jesus.