It’s My Way or the Highway – Sarah’s Story
The husband is to be the head of the family and as Christian wives, we are to be submissive to our husbands. This is nothing to be fearful of or to feel humiliated by. After all, a Christian husband is to love his wife as much as God loves the church. But for some reason, Sara didn’t get this message.
Sarah’s Story
For anyone not familiar with who Sarah is, Sarah was married to Abraham. God chose Abraham to be the father or beginning of the entire Israelite race. There was just one problem with that in Sarah’s eyes-she was over eighty years old and was childless.
It’s easy to see why Sarah would have these thoughts, but God had been actively working in her and Abraham’s life, so she could just as easily trust God to do what he said he was going to do.
Unfortunately, Sarah decided to take matters into her own hands.
God said he would give SARAH and Abraham a child. But because Sarah didn’t think this was possible, she had Abraham sleep with her maid (Hagar) for the purpose of getting pregnant. In other words, she decided to do God’s job for him.
FYI: this never ends well.
It worked. Well, sort of. Abraham and Hagar had a son-Ishmael. But that’s not the way God had it planned, so a few years later, Sarah got pregnant and had The child God promised her and Abraham.
This is where things get really interesting (messy).
Sarah became insanely jealous of Hagar and Ishmael. It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to say Sarah hated them- so much so that we read in Genesis, chapter twenty-one, that she demanded Abraham send them away; cutting all ties with them forever…
The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham.
The Bible gives accounts of other incidents in Sarah’s life following the mess with Ishmael and Isaac; incidents that portray her as being more submissive to Abraham and somewhat of a cohort in deceitful situations. We also read of the death of Sarah in Genesis 23 and how Abraham mourned and wept for her.
What We Can Learn From Sarah
Sarah was a complex woman. On the one hand, she was a faithful servant of God and a submissive wife who left her home and all that was familiar to her to go to a place God told them to. On the other hand, though, she was manipulative, selfish, and mean.
From Sarah, we learn…
Lesson One:
Trust God to do what he says he is going to do. God said Sarah would have a baby. That should have been enough for her. When you feel God’s leading or ask God for direction, trust him to point you in the right direction.
There will be times when what God wants for you will require action on your part-including making choices and decisions. In other words, God isn’t going to zap this or that to make things happen for you.
But hear this loud and clear: it will never be in God’s will for you to do things that contradict his Word. Furthermore, if you are seeking God’s direction and/or feel he is leading you down one path, he will make sure the way is clear for you to get where he wants you to go.
Lesson Two:
Family matters. The fact that nearly fifty percent of homes in America are blended homes or families doesn’t exclude the Church. Christians everywhere have either come to know Jesus post-divorce or have disobeyed God’s expectations for marriage.
Either way, if you are a step-mom, you have a responsibility and commitment to LOVE your husband’s children and do NOTHING to endanger or hinder your husband’s relationship with his children from a previous relationship.
The relationship between a stepmom and her stepchildren can be prickly, but it doesn’t have to be.
Even if the children involved are resistant, angry, or even bitter, you have the responsibility to love them in spite of themselves for the sake of your relationship with God, your relationship with your husband, and your relationship with yourself.
Lesson Three:
It’s nice to be nice.
Hagar didn’t ask Sarah if she could sleep with her husband. Culturally, Hagar didn’t have a choice. As for Ishmael, he didn’t ask to be born. Ishmael deserved to be loved by his father.
Likewise, both Ishmael and Isaac deserved the chance to have a strong, brotherly relationship. Ismael didn’t ask for any of this, but he sure paid the price for Sarah’s impulsiveness-a price WE are still paying today.
She put Abraham in a horrible position for nothing. God said he was going to give the two of them a son to be the father of the Israelite nation. It was going to happen no matter where Ishmael was.
If Sarah had owned her mistake and acknowledged that Abraham had a right to love Ismael, too, oh what a different place this world would be.
To Sum It All Up
Trusting God to do what he says he’s going to do is the surest way to live the life he created us to live. It won’t be a perfect life, but it will be a life full of blessings, promise, and the security of knowing God is always there for us.