Friday, September 6, 2013

This - this distrust for God's plan and His timing, this need to take control, this manipulation of circumstances to fit our "needs" instead of His will - this is when disaster happens. - She Reads Truth: Women in the Bible, Part 1

Sarai is a beautiful woman.  The only thing she doesn't have is a child to love.  God promised that she would have one, but that's not good enough for Sarai, so she takes things into her own hands and decides to live vicariously through her slave.  Oh. My. Word.  I actually find this hard to believe, but looking at the culture of the time, I suppose that it was a socially acceptable thing for a man to have children with more than one woman.  I still can't imagine being a wife and being ok with, let alone encouraging it, my husband sleeping with another woman, even if the purpose was to get a child.  That's crazy!  God has a plan.  His plan is right.  When you try to make your own plan to speed up His plan . . . you're headed for disaster!  Look what happened when Sarai did that, she ended up hating Hagar and Hagar ended up despising Sarai.  The child that Hagar had ended up being the father of a nation that now fights against Israel, Sarai's future descendants. My advice, to you and especially to myself: DON'T TRY TO HURRY GOD UP!  God's timing is much better than yours, so back off and let Him lead.

-Meg

"And suddenly -though well- intentioned and innocently enough - God's plans become our own." - She Reads Truth: Women in the Bible, Part 1

-Sarai was impatient, she was tired of waiting for God's plan to fall into place, so she took it into her own hands.

-taking God's plans into our own hands can lead to disaster.

-waiting for God's plan to happen/to be done is often hard.

-we need to remember that God has a plan. thinking that I am reminded of Jeremiah 29:11 "11For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (NLT)

-Tiff