I've often felt that Genesis chapter sixteen recounts some of the saddest and most devastating events in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah had received a promise from God: even though they were old in years, they were going to have a miracle baby who would be their son and heir. I don't know how much time passed between chapter fifteen and chapter sixteen, but it was possibly a number of years, as Abraham had already been living in Canaan for a whole decade by then. Perhaps the old couple were beginning to feel that time was running out, and so they decided to take matters into their own hands. They did something that might seem shocking to us today, but was actually very common in the time and culture that they lived in. Abraham slept with his wife's servant, an Egyptian woman, so that she could be the surrogate mother for the son that God had promised them. How tragic it is when we know the will of God for our lives, but we try to make it happen in our own way and our own timing. Many thousands of years later, when we look at Israel and the Middle East, we realise that our world is still seeing the consequences of Abraham's decision to father Ishmael, instead of waiting for the miracle child that God had promised.
When we pick up the story again in Genesis chapter 17, thirteen long years have passed and Ishmael is already a young teenager. Abraham himself is 99 years old when God comes to him to renew the promise and tell him that his wife Sarah is going to bear a son. Abraham seems shocked. Had he known throughout those thirteen years that Ishmael was not the son God had promised? Or was he believing that his choice to "give God a helping hand" had somehow worked out, despite the many tensions it had caused within his household?
Back in chapter fifteen, we read that Abraham believed God when he heard the promise of a son. But now, some fourteen to twenty years later, Abraham's reaction is quite different: he laughs in disbelief, only too aware that he is nearly a century old, and his wife Sarah is ninety. Was he incredulous because of how he had previously messed up with the whole Hagar and Ishmael situation? Or was it simply the test of time, and he found it hard to believe because he had already waited many years to see this particular promise fulfilled?
How well do you, or I, do with the test of time? Does our faith waver and die when a promise isn't fulfilled as quickly as we thought it might be? Are we tempted to try to make things happen in our own strength? Or are we willing to trust in God's timing, as well as trusting that He is able to fulfil every detail of His word to us?
