COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 43 - MAKING THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

The world we live in today makes a big deal about making special announcements public, such as weddings and anniversaries, and of course; the soon coming arrival of a child.  I have to wonder what this would have been like if you were living in the ancient land of Caanan and you were the SECOND wife that had conceived the child with your Mistress’s husband. 

It must have been a bit strange to our way of thinking today. 

Would there have been a gender reveal?  Of course not, there was no way of knowing the sex of a child back in those days, but there must have been an “I’m going to have a baby and it belongs to Abram” public moment that came to pass in Hagar’s life.  How would this have transpired? 

It must have been the talk of the tents!  

How do you imagine Hagar went about telling Abram and Sarai the news?   Of course they would have been waiting and watching and expecting, but still, it would have been perhaps a bit strange and awkward.   

How do you think she was received when she did let them know the news?  I can’t help but wonder who she told first, Abram or Sarai.  I suspect she went to Abram first.  The scriptures leave much to our imagination.  We can only look at the history of women who became “second wives” back in those days and learn a little of what might have happened.

The technical word for second wife was “concubine.”   The concubine was always of inferior status to the first wife.  If the husband wished to perform a veiling ceremony she could obtain the name of “wife” but she would still be considered the inferior wife, the second choice with the first wife always being over her and in charge of her. The husband was in charge of the first and chosen wife, but he WAS NOT in charge of any wife after her.  Any subsequent wife was totally under the charge of the first and chosen wife.  Hagar's welfare remained in the hands of Sarai even after she bore a child of Abram's.

Much of these concubine relationships materialized when the first wife discovered she was barren.  The concubine was a way of securing an heir for the family name if the first wife simply could not bear a child.  Many ancient marriage agreements had wording stating promises from the wife that should the wife be unable to bear an heir she would secure a concubine to have her husband’s children.   These heirs would hold unless the first wife later and unexpectedly bears a child.  The concubine’s children were always inferior to the chosen first wife’s children.  This was true for everything concerning a child in the family, but especially true when it came to inheritance. 

Because of these situations in the culture, the laws of Israel that came later were very careful to provide rights safeguarding the Hebrew girls who found themselves being sold as handmaidens. 

It seemed that when a concubine was going to be provided as one who would bear the children for her mistress, it was usually done by taking a very strong and healthy young handmaiden (often bought in the market of slaves) that the mistress could train as a child and supervise as she grew into a young girl.  The young girl would be brought up to serve the household.    Usually before the child was born the handmaiden would become wed to the one who had purchased the handmaiden. 

Some people have been very upset thinking that Abram sinned with Hagar by committing adultery.  Well, we have already discovered that Abram was an ordinary man and very capable of sin just as any other man; but in this case he was innocent.  He was simply following the legalities and civil laws that were in place in his days and in the culture where he lived.   At that time in that culture it was perfectly legal for Abram to take a second wife.  Sarai's giving Hagar to him would have signified that she was being chosen as a second wife for the purpose of bearing a child to Abram.  Notice the word "wife."  Even though Hagar was a second, inferior wife, chosen only for the sake of bearing children; she was in fact legally married to Abram.  You cannot commit adultry with someone who you are married to.   Even if they had not been married, the law (the ten commandments) had not yet been given, so it was hard to break a commandment that God had not yet officially commanded.  This argument that Abram sinned doesn’t really stand, and for once Abram is let off the hook.  That is also not to say that Abram did the right thing.  Abram should have consulted God before agreeing with Sarai in this plan.  Does anything about this sound familiar?  What if Adam had consulted with God before agreeing to eat the fruit that Eve offered?  The devil's tactics never change, they are always the same and usually quite predictable when you think about it.  

Also, that isn’t to say that God did not intend for men to have only one wife and for women to have only one husband.  Once again, He set the example for us with Adam and Eve way back in the garden.  He showed us the better way from the start.  It was man who came up with the other less than perfect ways of living, and hence mankind is always dealing with the circumstances of their own mistaken choices.   God later addressed this issue when He wrote down the ten commandments and gave them to Moses. 

The picture of Sarai and Abram making their own decisions here instead of waiting on God to bring about His will for them is a perfect lesson and example of how things are better when you do things the best way; God’s way.  In all life situations there is a choice between the way that SEEMS right to men, and God's way.  It seems that Abram and Sarai rushed God’s plan because they got all caught up in their own importance instead of God’s.   If Abram sinned at all, this would be where it happened.  Now, for the rest of his life, the relationship of Abram and Sarah and their beautiful love story would have a shadow of a handmaiden and another son named Ishmael.  The focus of complete joy would forever be diverted  from the eventual promised child because of the responsibilities brought on by wrong human decisions that were way lower than God's original purposes.  

God allows us to grow in and from our mistakes.  This happens because He doesn't produce a magic wand that instantly corrects everything that we have done wrong.  He lets us live with the circumstances that we bring upon ourselves and He is still kind and merciful and loving to us through it all.  He takes our mistakes and turns them for good eventually, even if the "good" is just to teach us to be more careful and more diligent to seek His guidance.  

If the handmaiden went through the child bearing process and boar a child for her mistress and then sought to place herself on an equal footing, she normally could not be sold to anyone else (this kept the man’s child living within his own household even if the relationship with the woman went sour); although she could be reduced again to the status of a slave.  There were civil laws and provisions spelled out in the Code of Hammurabi stating certain conditions where the slave-concubine and her child could even be expelled, but only on the advice of divine oracle.  This too plays into the story of Abram, Sarai and Hagar as we will discuss later.

All of the above is interesting to note as we look deeper into the story of Hagar, Abram and Sarai.

The scriptures tell us that Hagar bore a male child to Abram and even while she was pregnant with him she began to despise Sarai. 

Hagar had been with Sarai since that dreadful time in Egypt when Abram had almost let Pharaoh marry Sarai without telling him she was his wife.  God had intervened in that time and the truth had been revealed.  When Pharaoh sent them away he gave Hagar to them, but it is said that she had requested to go saying:  “One day in the house of Abram and Sarai is better than many days in the house of Pharaoh”  Perhaps Hagar, even as a young girl had entertained the thoughts of being the wife of Abram and bearing his children.  Perhaps she had looked at the life that Sarai led and said “that is for me – I’ll take it!  I want to be just like her!”  There again is another commandment - "Thou shalt not covet" - that had not yet been written down in stone or spelled out for the world to see.  We don’t really know, but it is quite possible that Hagar coveted the life of Sarai. 

Maybe Hagar was simply a child used in a sneaky political move.  Perhaps Pharaoh, secretly wishing to promote the growth of Egypt beyond its borders thought to himself; “I’ll send one of the daughters of my concubines with them and even though they gain great wealth when this child gives birth to another child we will be able to put an Egyptian claim onto all the lands that they come to possess."  Ancient cultures were known for devious acts such as this.  Every kingdom was about power and greed in those days.  Now, this is only imaginative thinking, no one knows what really went on behind the scenes and why Pharaoh allowed one of his princess/daughters to become the handmaiden to Sarai, but it is a thought worth entertaining. 

Who knows what secret thoughts Hagar held in her heart as she grew up in the tents of Abram?  It is in many ways like the story of Esther in reverse. 

It appears in every segment of Hagar’s story that her greatest characteristic was her ambition.  She held on in very hard circumstances determined to succeed in spite of all obstacles.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  What we really know at this point is Hagar was Sarai’s handmaiden and Sarai gave her to Abram to bear a child and Hagar became pregnant and despised Sarai when she did. 

One cannot help but wonder if this word “despise” is a way to describe that green-eyed monster common among women called jealousy.  Let us consider that a bit as we think of Sarai and Hagar and this situation.  They were probably both equally jealous for very different reasons.  

Hagar probably craved the power and control and possessions of Sarai as Abram’s wife, including the love of Abram.  Can you imagine the pain of knowing that another woman would take the child born of your flesh into her arms immediately after birth and raise the child as its mother?  No matter how Hagar worked at her ambitions to replace Sarai, Sarai was ALWAYS going to be in the picture and always going to have control of the destiny of Hagar's child.   

Sarai, on the other hand,  probably felt pain and sorrow to have another woman bearing the child of the one man she had always loved with all of her heart. No matter what she did from this point forward, Abram's loyalties would always be divided and distracted away from her toward this son of another woman.  It must have been humiliating to Sarai to have to make the choice to allow another to give birth to her husband's child and sit helplessly by and watch as the world around her changed daily with this new development.  

Before Hagar's pregnancy Sarai and Hagar had most likely been very close friends.  They would have by this time spent hours and hours and days and years side by side in the household of Abram.  They would have been a team in all that had happened so far.  We can read in the legends of the sages stories of  Sarai entertaining royalty in her tents and recognizing and addressing Hagar as a royal princess instead of her slave among the guests.  Perhaps there were many, many times that these two shared the everyday moments of womanhood in the family together, laughing, talking as close friends, emphasizing with one another over the things that all women go through.  Hagar had most likely been a close friend, confidant and supporter of Sarai.  Now all of that was destroyed between them.  The whole landscape of their relationship and friendship totally changed when Hagar made her famous announcement.   These were real life-changing times for both of these women.   

By the time that Hagar was pregnant and despised Sarai, Sarai knew that she had acted in haste with her decision to give her to Abram and she most likely regretted it terribly.   It must have come  clear to her like a hammer over the head that she had not sought this out through prayer and had not consulted God at all.  She would have had to see the look of concern on Abram’s face every time Hagar winced when the baby kicked, and she would have not been used to the tender way a man would have treated a woman bearing the child of his loins.  Some of the tender loving care that Abram had always given to Sarai would naturally go now to the mother of his child.  This all must have been an eye-opening experience to Sarai and her grief could have easily turned to a huge mountain of bitterness and hate. 

So what do you do when you have gone against the wishes of God even after He has promised you nothing but great blessings and a perfect destiny and has made your life so fulfilling and abundant up until that point?

Wouldn’t we all love to know what went on in the mind and hearts of Sarai and Abram during this time that Hagar was pregnant?  

It must have been a very strange time indeed.  What should have been a time of sheer joy was  now touched and stained with the human traits of anger, bitterness, jealousy, hate, regret, uncertainty, fear and a million other human emotions.  It was all unnecessary, but God lets us make our own choices.  The thing is – once made – we have to live with them.  

It isn’t completely bad though, this is how we learn grace and how we can learn to love deeper and with more intention.  Ironically, pain often brings gain.  Eventually the fog lifts and God shows us the detour that our decisions have brought to our journey.  Detours are not always smooth paved roads, they can get rocky and hard to travel.  We have to just keep moving until we get back to God’s original destiny.  Sometimes it takes a very long time. 

Both Hagar and Sarai had made some bad decisions.  Hagar in choosing to leave her life as the princess she desired to be in her heart all along, and Sarai in choosing to let another woman into her marriage and giving her the right to bear the child to Abram.  Abram too had allowed things to happen without questioning or correcting the errors.  They all had detours cropping up on the radar.  It was going to be a much different and harder journey from here on out.  Some days the only thing left to do is to just keep on walking.

In spite of Abram and Sarai’s mistakes and humanness, God was with them through it all.   He was still pouring out His blessings on them as well as looking after Hagar and her child.     

God is good - all the time.

COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 42 - THE BEST LAID SCHEMES OF MICE AND MEN

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

I cannot think of the next chapter in the life of Abram and Sarai without considering the line of Robert Burn's  Scottish poem called "To A Mouse."   One quote is rendered:  "the best-laid schemes of mice an' men gang aft agley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promis'd joy!"  

The author is pondering how the little mouse's winter house is all in ruins because of being hit by a plough.  He thinks of how the mouse carefully planned ahead for winter and worked so hard to make such a nice little nest, which the plough just goes right over and destroys in an instant.  Then he considers the act of men making plans and how often, no matter how well laid-out they are; they are destroyed by the unexpected or get terribly off course and messed up along the way.  He thinks how mice at least live in the present moment where men are always looking forward or backward, trying to fix things they have no control over.  

Often when considering this I've thought Robert Burns might have had the same problem as Abram and Sarai with his outlook on life.  He might not have invited God into all the big, life-changing decisions.  Perhaps if the little mouse had consulted God on where to build his nest the plough would not have happened.  There are also certain places that men would not go - had they consulted God about their future.  It is only human to forget this from time to time, and Abram and Sarai were just that - only human.

You would think after all the trouble that God went to in confirming the

covenant with Abram that he would be completely reassured of God’s promises and just begin to wait patiently to see it all come to pass.

Not so.  Abram was inside of time and God was outside of time and their perspective on the passing of time was completely different.  God was and always is looking at the perfect clock and waiting on the perfect time for everything that evolves in his plan for mankind.  Abram was inside of time worried that things were not happening fast enough. 

 He believed; of course he did!  He believed every word that God spoke to him, but he probably kept wondering if maybe he missed some little instruction or something more.  Nothing was happening and he was getting to be old.  Maybe God had told him something to do that he had forgotten.   Those voices that often pop up in the heads of humans to add to confusing times kept repeating themselves.

Perhaps it was up to him.  Perhaps he needed to think of a way to bring God’s will about in a timely manner.  Abram, like all humans before him and after him, began to rationalize about things that were supernatural in nature and tried to make them happen in man’s way instead of waiting on God’s way.  All the time Abram was pondering this; but still he kept impatiently waiting.

Abram might have waited a lot longer and been a lot more patient if Sarai had not been involved.  He had shared the news of the covenant with her and she had believed it too.  She pondered the timing of things just like Abram.  She, after all, WAS a big part of this picture and she was getting older, much older. 

She had heard Abram tell the stories of the covenant over and over.  It was like a dream that they shared together, but why wasn’t it happening?  Sarai must have kept asking herself what was so wrong in her that she could not conceive a son to grant the greatest wish of her husband.  She was deeply troubled in her waiting.  It seemed that her destiny had been put on hold forever.  Why?  Sarah was always wondering why.  She wasn’t one to sit and mope and she did not like this constant never-ending waiting. 

She probably kept telling herself over and over again that she had so much to be thankful for.  She should just be patient, but everything was just taking way too long. 

Was there a sin within her holding this miracle back; too much ingratitude, too much pride?  Not enough humility?  Was she too selfish?  If it was her, what could she do about it?  Was there a way she could be less selfish and give a son to Abram?  Sometimes we look at ourselves and receive doubt instead of looking at God and finding hope.

She pondered this night and day for a long time.  Question after question haunted her thoughts as she spent her hours of waiting.  She was now well past the age of childbearing.  Maybe God was trying to make her think of another way to accomplish this?  Was He?  Anyway – what else was there to do? 

Sarai looked around and glimpsed her beautiful young handmaiden going about her daily chores.  How she wished to be young and healthy again, like her.  Envy has been the fall of many a great woman.  Hagar had been a good servant so far.  She had actually chosen to come with Sarai and Abram from the house of Pharaoh.  She had been one of Pharaoh’s daughters from a concubine.  She had so admired Sarai that she had said as a very young girl “Better to live as a servant in the house of Sarai and Abram than to be a royal princess in the house of Pharaoh,”  Her father had quickly granted her request and sent her off to be Sarai’s handmaiden.  

Since Hagar had chosen her position in life, and been a good servant to her, Sarai felt she could trust her with anything.  The girl had a simplicity about her and she looked up to Sarai and mimicked her every move.  It was very flattering.  Flattery has also been the downfall of many a great woman.  She would always be loyal, wouldn’t she?  She listened when Sarai spoke and took in all of the wisdom she had gained in her years of living in Abram’s tents.   Hagar had learned a lot from Sarai.

The more Sarai pondered this the more Sarai wondered if the answer to

her troubles was living and breathing right inside her own tent.  Perhaps she could trust Hagar to bear a son for her and Abram.  It displeased Sarai to think of Abram with another woman, but she might be able to bear that just once in order to give him the son of his desire.  Surely he would only respect her more for being so unselfish in fulfilling his desires?  Many women thought nothing of this.  

Of course, it would mean that Hagar would have to be considered a second wife.  Sarai would still be the first and honored wife, but Hagar would be taken as a second wife in order to give the family name to her son.  She would be more honored in the household than she was now, but she would still be under Sarai’s charge and she would still tend to Sarai’s needs.  Maybe it meant not much would change. 

Sarai realized she might have come up with a way to heal the only part of her marriage that suffered – the fact that she was childless.  She began to have visions of her tending to a son that Abram loved and Hagar being humble and kind in letting her do so.  Like Abram, she began to rationalize the plans of God instead of waiting to see what God would bring about.  

The scriptures never mention once that Sarai consulted God in this; and that is because SHE DID NOT.  She had become so comfortable in her blessings from God that she just took for granted that He would approve of her plan.  Isn't that the most human thing you have ever known?  

She made a horrible mistake in thinking that this was a question that she had the right to answer. 

It wasn’t.  

Haven’t we all been guilty of the same?  

We go right on making huge life changing decisions on our own because we think we have come up with a brilliant plan and we never consult God who knows how un-brilliant some of our plans can turn out to be.

Sarai talked to Abram and Abram agreed to the plan.  God was there all the time.  He was waiting too.  As He waited they proceded with the plan they had devised on their own.  God will let this happen if you chose to create your own trap.  Sometimes the only learning tools that work are the tools created by our own mistakes.  God is graceful, loving and kind.  He did not leave them or forsake them when they left Him out of the equation.  He simply kept loving them and let them suffer the consequences of their own mistake.  They just assumed that God would be in agreement.  Isn’t that such a human trait? 

 It wasn’t long before Hagar was with child and the pleasant tents of Abram began to take on a new and altogether different atmosphere.