“If it’s got to be, it’s up to me.”
I love a good motivational quote! Seriously.
There’s a lot of truth to this line. If you need a job, do you sit at home and wait for the phone to ring? Or do you complete job applications and alert your network that you’re looking? If you need to have to have a direct conversation with someone, do you just hope for the best? Or do you talk to them? Well…what should you do?
So, we agree with the sentiment of the line. But if we’re disciples of Jesus, there’s an overarching truth we must embrace. We must embrace the sovereignty of God in all of life.
The real kicker is that when we don’t and then we run ahead of the Lord, it can have disastrous consequences.
I was a child of the 80s, and my parents watched the evening news. While those may seem unrelated, I saw a lot of news about “tension in the Middle East.” I remember asking my dad why they can’t get along and why we’re always talking about them. He said, “Genesis 16,” and they have been fighting ever since.
Let’s begin this origin story of what we still hear in the news daily. We read in Genesis 16:1-6:
1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Genesis 16:1-6, New International Version
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
We’d previously seen Abram’s conversation with the Lord. The Lord declared that the promised child would be his flesh and blood (Genesis 15). But that didn’t necessarily mean that Abram’s wife, Sarai, would be this child’s mother. Here, at the beginning of Genesis 16, we see Sarai taking matters into her own hands.
She did not patiently wait for God to fulfill the promise in His way and in His own time. Instead, she approached Abram with the suggestion. She proposed he could have a child with her Egyptian servant, Hagar.
Before you let too many thoughts get into your mind, stop. Keep reading.
Culturally, it was entirely acceptable for Sarai to offer her servant to her husband to provide children. While strange to us, this was an accepted practice for most of the Ancient Near Eastern World. Remember also that God called Abram out of a pagan culture. We’re still well before the giving of the Law. Abram and Sarai were products of their culture. The Lord was teaching them something very different.
Nonetheless, this was the futility of human attempts to achieve the Lord’s blessing. It’s also a violation of the monogamous relationship between Abram and Sarai the Lord already required of all of humanity.
The author places this narrative directly after the Lord establishes a covenant, promising a biological child (Genesis 15:4). This suggests that Sarai’s scheme was intended to head off that divine promise. The scheme tried to supply it with a human solution. Though successful from a cultural point of view, Sarai’s plan does not meet with divine approval (See Genesis 17:15–19, but we’ll get there soon.).
Sarai and Abram stopped trusting the Lord. Then Sarai took to blaming the Lord for the situation. Hagar was thrown into the problem. Soon, Sarai became jealous of Hagar and mistreated her. Then Hagar ran away.
Thus, the story falls in line with the theme of the stories that preceded it. We humans are utterly incapable of fulfilling the divine promises of the Lord.
When we take the matters of God into our own hands, disaster will surely follow. Look at the mess we’re in now in Genesis 16.
Have you acted like Sarai? Have you taken matters into your own hands instead of doing it the Lord’s way? We are called to trust the Lord. Yes, we have a part to play in following Him and trusting Him. Yet, our role is not to be the Lord. Nor is it our role to be Sarai. We’re called to trust His ways and His timing.
Life Meets Theology 