Thurs.’s Devo - Sarai’s Solution

Read Gen. 15:18-16:10

God cut a covenant with Abram, but usually when you cut a covenant with a person both persons walk between the sacrifice. In this one, only God walked through the pieces of meat. This was to signify that he alone was obligated to do what the covenant said and it did not depend on Abram. What a picture of grace. It is hard for us to accept the fact that Jesus’ blood paid our debt and we don’t owe anything else. We just have to believe it by faith. God’s covenant with Abram was that he was giving him the land that the enemies of God owned. That is still the covenant God is offering to us. We can have the land that the enemy stole from God, if we will take possession of it. Sometimes our problem is the same as Abram’s: when we don’t see it happen we think we need to step in and help God. God had promised all this land to Abram’s seed and he was married to a barren woman. How was this going to happen? Since the problem was with Sarai, Sarai felt obligated to come up with a solution… her Egyptian maid, Hagar. After all, it had been 10 years since God had given his promise and maybe God had forgotten. This seemed like a good idea till Hagar actually got pregnant. Then the evil green monster: envy, totally consumed Sarai and she hated Hagar. So much so, that she went to Abram about it. He told her she could do what she wanted about it since it was her slave, so Sarai treated Hagar so badly she ran away. It was not a good thing to be a slave back then; you were considered property. God saw her as much more than that, and he followed her into the wilderness. She rested by a stream and God came to visit her in the form of an angel. He told her to return to Sarai and take whatever she doled out because the end is going to make it worth all the pain. Her seed would be multiplied because he was a seed of Abram’s.

In a world where comfort is considered godliness, this is hard to fathom, but God isn’t afraid of a little pain. He knows that it works a greater work in us than comfort ever will.

Lord, thank you for the trials you bring us in life. May they burn the chaff out of us that we might shine as pure gold.