One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Gen 16 to 18 Take a walk in the sand and then try to retrace your walk. The path is much like our lives, one step forward and two back. Our heads swirl with the biblical characters whose lives are held up as a model to us, but then we see that their paths are like ours in the sand.

Abram follows God to Canaan but then fails to trust Him in a famine. In Egypt, Abram lies about Sarai to Pharaoh. One of the things God hates most is that of a lying spirit. [Prov 6:17]He is sent away with great wealth and a servant but was it really worth it?  Next, Abram had just spent an extended time with God and received from Him the promise of a child from his own loins. We wonder why he then chose to listen to Sarai in the next chapter to impregnate Hagar, the Egyptian servant girl.

Principle: Never promote the cause of God by manipulation. When we try to circumvent God’s plans using human wisdom, nothing good comes from it. [James 3:15] Instead, God’s wisdom is from above and is beyond our comprehension. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights [James 1:17]

Lastly, Hagar meets God and comes to know that God sees everything about us. Hagar then, like Job can know: “But he knows the pathway that I take; if he tested me, I would come forth like gold.” [Job 23:10]

Which step are you on today — which step am I on?