September 27, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. God said to him, ‘Do not be so distressed about the boy and your servant, his mother. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, she is right; it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.’” (Genesis 21.11-13)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

I cannot go further without commenting on the sadness Abraham must have felt. Abraham was being asked by Sarah to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. For twelve years, Ishmael was an only child and Abraham’s only son. They lived, laughed, walked, talked, ate as father and son. Ishmael was raised in the knowledge of God which Abraham would have taught him in words and in actions. Ultimately, there were circumcised together along with all the other males in the community of Abraham. There was the obvious physical, spiritual, social, emotional and psychological bonding. They had become as one person the way real fathers and sons should. No, Abraham was not going to take Ishmael up Mount Moriah as he would later take Isaac at God’s command. He would not bind him on a stone slab surrounded by firewood primed for igniting. But the sacrifice was just as real and just as traumatic. Do not think for a moment that Abraham was not grieving when Sarah presented her demand and argument. If it were not real, then God would not have said “Do not be so distressed…I will provide.” I can see in my mind’s eye how Abraham might have gone into that same desert place beyond Beersheba where Hagar was again being sent a second time. The angst she must have felt reliving a most terrifying and traumatic experience at the command of Sarah. (Consider, Sarah is now making these sacrificial requests of both Hagar and Abraham. She is the one feeling the angst and creating her own healing.) Yet, as Hagar would could out this time with the knowledge of having met God previously and calling Him, “One who sees,” she had to believe that He would see her again. I can imagine, though I have no evidence to say it as fact, that Abraham went out to “see God” and be “seen” by Him in this time. That is where I hear God speak to him and comfort him and encourage him to do what is required. There is a biblical term for this “setting apart” and it is the word sanctification. Abraham would not have simply stood outside of Hagar’s tent and pointed a finger into the wilderness and say “GO!” How many eyes were watching as Abraham obeyed Sarah’s demand? This was not a temporary arrangement. Hagar was Sarah’s handmaiden and handmaid. She was a trusted woman who Sarah gave her own husband to. Hagar never married. Abraham was her first and only intimate partner. She would have had friends in the community of Abraham with whom she had grown fond of and shared life with as well. Hagar, and Ishmael, were not isolated in their departure. They were disconnecting from an entire way of life that had become their own. No, Abraham would not have been callous and unfeeling. Giving an appearance of strength but trembling inside could have only been possible by setting Hagar and Ishmael aside as “holy unto the Lord.” He could have only dismissed these two whom he loved greatly, with the surety of God’s presence and promise. This was a spirit-rending moment. Sadly, I feel and fear, Sarah would have been the only one glad to see her go. Sarah was willing to make the sacrifice because she had died to Hagar and Ishmael before Ishmael was even born. She treated them as cattle, sheep or cloth. They were merely resources and expendables. They weren’t even real people in her eyes. There would have been no tears she by her. She would have held Isaac and, dare I suggest, laugh at their departure.

Mighty ones of God, do not think that any person is just a thing. The breath of God came into each and every one of them at conception. It did not happen when they first took a breath of the atmosphere nor when they breathed in the air that came over them in the arms of their mother and father and those of the world. The breath of God, His ruach, came over each one just as the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep and out of it life was called forth in bits and pieces and stages until it was made whole. For any person to see another merely as an object to be used, abused and discarded as if that person was simply collateral is ungodly. Only the enemy comes to “steal, kill and destroy.” Is that the province of godly people, especially those who follow Christ as “the way, the truth and the life“? Yes, we are to separate ourselves from things that are harmful and detrimental to us. We are to push away the sin that so easily encourages us to become less of the godly which nature by its nature creates. Nature knows nothing more than to do what it was created to do. Nature does not begat ungodliness. Only those under the influence of the Evil One do and that by denying the godly nature that is in them. We may create things and relationships in serving ourselves more than God. We need to be aware and careful to remember the “real” those things become. We have to consider well the consequences of our actions and set aside our feelings and emotions and embrace the truth of what those consequences are and how we must be respond to them. They may well kill us. They may well confirm our deadness. They may cause us to repent, reconcile and restore. We cannot be like Sarah and grow cold inside. That coldness penetrates everything around us and influences the development of them and ourselves. Mighty ones of God, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and all that is needed will be provided.” If Sarah had done that from the beginning, if Abraham had denied her first request to please herself and not have intercourse with Hagar, how different the story would have been. Ultimately, God’s will is always done. The course among us is matter of our choosing to believe, obey and follow Him and our recognition of the course of His correction to get back to “the way, the truth and the life.” I fear that Sarah may have never truly gotten back to that point and that her coldness which was born out of her own heart persisted. Let it not be so with us!

TODAYS’ PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.