Give Me Patience and Hurry Up
Give Me Patience and Hurry Up!
Genesis 16:1-16
The title of this message kind of sums up the way that a lot of us feel about patience. We want it right now, we don’t want to have to wait for it. Far too few of us are really willing to lot God do things his way and in his time. Rhonda and I know a couple, a missionary couple in fact, that a number of years ago prayed for patience. That is a commendable thing to pray for, isn’t it? Well, God granted their prayer, he gave them twins.
Abram and Sarai had been waiting for a son for many years. This son was the one that would begin the fulfillment of God’s promise that he had made to them that their descendants would possess the land of Canaan. Because they were old, the delay of God to bless them with a child had to have tested their faith.
Lack of faith is probably one of the most commonly occurring sins in God’s people. All of us can recall times when we have grown tired of waiting on God and have stepped out on our own. As we look back on these times we should be able to see that if we would have just waited on God to supply what we were waiting for in his time, and not our time, it would have given us so many more blessings.
Though Abram and Sarai certainly did not show patience, we don’t really need to condemn them too harshly. They were anxious to see God’s plan unfold. Faith may be genuine but still be a little shaky because of the trials that go along with it. Abram had come a long way. He had left his home in Ur, he had spent time in Egypt, and now had spent a number of years in Canaan still waiting for God’s plan to be completed. Not only that, but now Sarai was well beyond child bearing age. What they saw as an impossibility, God saw as an opportunity to show his power and strength.
Aren’t we all sometimes guilty of doing much the same thing that Abram and Sarai did? Hopefully not the exact same thing, but much the same thing by telling God that we are through waiting on his time, and that we are the ones that know the best for our lives? Sure we are. All of us are guilty of that from time to time.
Abram and Sarai did what, at least to them at the time, seemed to be the logical thing to do. They maybe decided that what God really meant was that Sarai’s maid would have the son instead of Sarai herself. That was pretty common place in the day and age that these events happened in. When it did happen the child became the son or daughter of the father and his wife, so logically they decided that was what God intended.
That wasn’t what God had planned, though. Even though Abram and Sarai thought that God had forgotten them, God still remembered them and his promise to them. God never forgets any of his children. God always remembers us and loves us. Not only that, he will keep his promises to us. Just think, God is in control of the entire universe. He knows everything that is going on, everything about you, everything about me. Not only does he know everything that is going on, though, he is in control of everything that is going on. Does that mean that he is pleased with everything that is going on? No. Does that mean he is disappointed by many things that are going on? Yes. But he still knows what is going on and what is best for us. We just have to be willing to continue seeking, continue praying, continue waiting on God. That is something that Abram still did not completely understand and learn. More than that, though, he needed to be living in the light of that knowledge.
Regardless of Sarai’s suggestion that Hagar act as a surrogate, Abram was ultimately the guilty party. The source of this guilt was the old, evil nature that stays with us till the day we die. Sarai was not responsible for Abram’s sin, he made the choice himself. Satan is not even capable of making us sin, we make the choice to sin.
It is our lack of faith that often causes us the most trouble and can ultimately hurt other people. Who was Hagar? Most believe she was and Egyptian servant that Pharoah had given Abram while he was in Egypt. Think about the price and embarrassment that she paid because of this child. Hagar was not without fault in this situation, though. She could have stood up and said that what Sarai was proposing was wrong, but we have no record that she did this. And after she became pregnant and had the son, I just wonder how much she held this over Sarai’s head. She had suddenly become elevated from the status of a slave to the status of her master’s wife. This would have changed her entire relationship not only with Sarai, but also with Abram. When Sarai kicked Hagar out, it was completely according to the law they lived by. It may not have been fair, in fact it wasn’t fair, but many things that we face in our lives every day are not fair either, particularly when sin moves into our lives and takes over. Wrongdoing shows no logic in the people it has adverse effects on.
Who has this had adverse effects on? The entire world. The Israeli-Arab conflict goes all the way back to this event, the birth of Ishmael. If Abram would have just waited on God, the nation of Israel and the entire world would have been spared a lot of misery.
God is the one that can overrule our lack of faith. God can and does bless us in spite of our sins. He did forgive Abram and Sarai, later sending them Isaac.
But look for a moment at Hagar. When she was driven away, God still went with her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness and sent her back to Sarai with a promise that he would watch over her. Hagar gave God a special name because of his compassion – El Rio – which means a God who sees.
So many lessons come to us from this story that we have to be careful not to forget the first and most important one that serves as the foundation for all the others. Trust God and wait on him.