Sarai couldn't wait for God's
promises to come to pass and gave her servant, Hagar to Abram to
bear his children. Hagar became pregnant and started to treat Sarai
with contempt. Sarai blamed Abram for this and Abram in turn told
Sarai to do with Hagar what she wanted. Sarai started to treat her
harshly and due to this treatment Hagar ran away. And it was in her
hopeless situation that God appeared to her, blessed her and told
her to return to Sarai and to submit to her authority, which she
did. And in due course Ishmael was born.
Abram treated Ishmael as his
rightful heir, his son in every aspect. And for 13 years Abram
believed that Ishmael was the answer to God's promises. It was only
after 13 years that God told Abram otherwise. Now I would like us
to stop there and reflect on the life of Ishmael for a moment.
Imagine you were Ishmael. Your
mother is the servant of the mistress and your father is the head
of the household. You grow up hearing that you are the heir to all
your father has. You are the only descendant he has and you are in
line to inherit everything. You are treated by your father as a
respected son and he loves you. But you do feel the tension in the
air between your mother and the mistress, knowing that you were
born 'out of wedlock' so to speak. But you could handle that,
because for your father, you were everything.
Then one day you hear that your
father's wife is pregnant and before long you had a baby brother.
Now you hear that he is in fact the rightful heir. All of
a sudden you are no more than the 'servant's son'. You are not the
rightful son you always thought you were. And out of a jealous rage
you decided to poke fun at your little brother. And because you
did, you are chased away.
I cannot help but feel sorry for
Ishmael. He shouldn't have poked fun at Isaac, but he was rejected.
None of it was his own doing. He didn't ask to be born into this
situation. He didn't ask to be the result of one woman's
impatience. He didn't ask to be born out of sin.
There are many of us that feel like
Ishmael did, rejected, the 'black sheep' of the family, born into
the 'wrong' family on the 'wrong' side of the tracks, stuck in the
middle due to other people's sins etcetera. But do not allow that
to shape who you are. You are not the black sheep and you are not
defined by your circumstances and where you came from. God went
ahead and blessed Ishmael. He turned Ishmael into a great nation,
with twelve princes as his descendants. And He will bless you too,
no matter where you came from or what situation you might find
yourself in. Do not wallow in your circumstances and do not become
depressed about it. And above all do not relish in sin, using your
background as an excuse to do it. God has a special place for you,
just as He had for Ishmael. Rather focus on that and strive to be
all you can be in the Kingdom of God, because in His kingdom you
are a rightful heir. You are a rightful son with all the privileges
of royalty and no one can ever take it away from you. No matter
what you have been through, I can promise you that your eternal
future is bright and filled with love and acceptance.
Father, thank you so much that we
can know that we are rightful heirs. Thank you so much that we can
be part of Your royal kingdom. Thank you that we can rejoice and
know that we are forever safe with You. Please help us to forgive
those that have wronged us, to accept where we came from and to
live in the new life that You came to give us. In Jesus' Name.
Amen