Genesis 16 + Psalm 12
And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!”
Genesis 16:5
Genesis 16 shares the story of Sarai asking their servant to sleep with Abram so they can have a child since Sarai has been barren until this point. The Lord in Genesis 15 promises Abram and Sarai countless children but rather than trusting God, Sarai tries to take this promise into her own hands which creates many problems. It creates problems between her and the servant and her and her husband. Abram’s reaction to her request is a willingness to sleep with the servant. Adam shows a similar willingness in response to Eve’s request to eat the fruit. Abram and Adam both had the opportunity to take leadership in their headship position by following God but both chose to follow their wife into sin.
The initial sin leads to many more problems. Willing adultery leads to jealousy, blame, and power struggles. When we try to take control, our control causes more problems, as the ESV study Bible says, “the human solution to Sarai’s barrenness creates new problems.” Our “solution” is less of a solution than we think. The real solution is allowing God to work in the way that He does for our good. This requires trust and patience to believe that His solution will always be greater than our own.
You, O Lord, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever.
Psalm 12:7
God will guard and guide us for an eternity if we allow Him to. But we must allow Him for our trust to grow greater than our desire to take control. Even when we fail to trust (which we will), we can rest assured knowing that God’s grace is greater than our sin.
Genesis up to this point has encouraged me to put more faith and trust in God than I ever have before. I tend to hold onto a fear of “what if,” but what if I turn my what ifs into “what if I trusted God more”? What would happen then?
