Date: October 04, 2023|Series: Youth for Jesus|Number: Vol. 6, No. 21
“I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.” (Gen 21:13NIV)
Who said these words? God! Who did He say them to? Abraham! Why did He say them to him? It was because he was distressed by Sarah’s demand that Hagar and her son Ishmael be sent away from their household.
As the account goes, Sarah had seen Ishmael mocking her son Isaac while a feast was being held in his honour on the day that he was weaned. What prompted him to do that? We would not know. But what he did that day gave Sarah reasons to think that he would one day become a problem for her son Isaac. And since her son Isaac, though far younger than Ishmael, was the true heir of Abraham, she decided that the only way to protect him and his inheritance was for them to send Hagar and her illegitimate son, Ishmael, away. (Cf. Gen 21:6-10)
Now this matter bothered Abraham greatly, and rightly so. That was because Ishmael was his firstborn child. And he loved him. Then I am sure Abraham, being a god-fearing man, did not want it look like they used and dumped Hagar. But the truth is that Ishmael brought that situation on himself. He was not mindful of the fact that his status in Abraham’s house changed the very day Isaac was born to Sarah. He was relegated to the position of a servant that day. As such, he did not have in that house the standing of one who could mock a legitimate son of the house and get away with it.
There is, of course, a lesson for us in that. And it is that we should always be mindful of our status wherever we are. Otherwise, we may find ourselves doing things we have no standing to do and getting ourselves into avoidable troubles. There are, for instance, people that have been sent away from their workplaces just for hissing or winking at the wrong persons. So, always be conscious of your standing where you are before you let yourself loose to do something you may forever regret.
In any case, Sarah was firm about the fact that Ishmael and her mother must go. And as if to make the matter worse, God was on her side. God told Abraham that he just had to let Hagar and her son go. That was because He had no use for them in fulfilling His good purpose for Abraham and his household.
However, to let Abraham know that He was not callous and would never support injustice or wickedness, God told him that He was going to make Ishmael great too. Why? Was it because Ishmael was a pretty boy? No! A pretty face is never enough for God to make someone great. Otherwise, Absalom would have been God’s choice and not Solomon.
Then maybe it was because Ishamel was a very smart boy that God told Abraham that He would make him into a great nation. Not at all. The fact that he allowed himself to be caught mocking Isaac showed that he was not really smart.
Why, then, was God going to make him great? As we see in our opening bible text, it was because of Abraham. In other words, the greatness Ishmael was going to experience and enjoy was not something he worked for or merited. Rather, it was a gift coming to him because of his father’s relationship with God.
In like manner, like Ishmael, there are many today that are enjoying certain measure of goodness and greatness in life because of certain people in their lives and not because of anything they have in themselves. On the other hand, we also have people that are suffering in some ways in life because of the relationships they have with certain people and not because they themselves are evil or wicked. And what this is telling us that we need to watch how we live before God and before men.
See, the kind of relationship we build with God and also with men can go a long way in defining the quality of life that our children, family members, friends or anyone close to us will enjoy. Because of us, God or men may give the people in our lives certain experiences of favour and goodness that could have gone to others. And because of us as well, certain doors of favour and greatness may be shut against those who are related to us or close to us.
Which will it be, then? Will God and men be opening doors of favour, goodness and promotion to the people in our lives because of us or will they be shutting these doors against them because of us? Everything hangs on the kind of relationships we are currently building with God and men.
My prayer is that you will be enabled by God Himself to share with Him and others in your world wonderful and meaningful relationships that will continually open great doors of enjoyment for all the people connected to you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Cheers!