January 23

Ishmael

                    Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.  So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.  He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.  Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl 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!” But Abram said to Sarai, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.  And he said, “Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” And the angel of the Lord said to her,

“Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin.”

Genesis 16:1-12

             Ten years.  For ten years, Abram and Sarai were trying to live faithful to God’s promise.  Ten years of hoping.  Ten years of waiting.  Ten years of asking what they were doing wrong.  Ten years of questioning whether they had really heard God correctly.  Finally they decided to take matters into their own hands and give God’s miracle some help.  From that choice came Ishmael and from Ishmael came Islam.  The origin of all of the tensions and the wars between Muslims and Jews and Christians throughout the centuries can be traced directly back to this choice to push God’s promise along.

            When we found out that we were going to have a baby, my heart leapt and my mind raced.  I believed that a baby was a collection of promises from God, promises that included:

·                               *My wife and I would have someone to love and to teach, someone to develop into a strong man or woman of God. We would pass on our perspectives and our knowledge.  We would have a legacy to leave to this world.

·                       *Parenting would be challenging, but we knew everything that we needed to know to be successful.

·                                 *Our children would care for us as we got old, investing in us as we had invested in them when they were young.

That does not even take into account the dreams that I held as a Father around having a son: playing sports together and teaching him how to shave and drive and having deep talks about how to be a man in this world.

            What do we do with ourselves when we find that these were not promises, but assumptions?  What do we do when we can’t play sports with our sons or when our daughters can’t communicate or when we are faced with the prospect of being caregivers of our adult children as we move into needing care ourselves?  How do we continue when parents outlive their children?

            There are simple answers, but there are no easy answers.

·         We allow ourselves to mourn over what has been lost, whether a life or a dream, for God promises that those who mourn will be comforted. 

·         We embrace community instead of pushing them away for our children need more resource than we alone can provide.

·         We look for the small wins and celebrate them.  My wife and I celebrated my son’s birthday every six months for a while; we were just so amazed that we had all made it that far.

·         We redefine our Legacy.  Your life is not measured by what you leave behind, for that is often out of your control.  Life is measured by how you live each day, every moment of the day.  Did you love?  Did you serve with joy?  Did you pour out your life for those around you?

Sarai was fixated on what they were to leave behind in this world.  She was tortured over not producing an heir as if it was her fault that God’s promises had not come true.  When Hagar conceived, Sarai’s hatred was turned from herself to her maid and she lashed out. 

           God calls us to invest in a Loving Life rather than a Lasting Legacy.  The funny thing is that if you focus on the former, you usually end up with the latter, but it does not work the other way around.

                                        

A moment to reflect:

What dreams have you had to mourn the loss of?  How does Jesus speak comfort to those places?

Refrigerator Art of the Day:

D Age 15