No matter how many people I have met there is not one person who does not have one complaint about their family. There are things that our family's do that seem to get on our nerves and are like little pins being shoved under our finger nails. But they are our family and even though there may be things that will drive us crazy we ourselves are not immune to causing some havoc.
Abram's family was not different from our modern day family. Sure there were different customs and all but for the most part the interactions between different members of the family were not perfect. In chapter 15 of Genesis, Abram did not have a family like most people had. He lacked a son to carry on the family name and even though God kept his promises with Abram, the promise of ancestors as numerous as the stars was nowhere to be found. That's why God shows up and goes through the ritual of making an oath, kind of like a handshake but involving cutting animals in half and walking through them.
Even though Abram has this promise from God he stills finds a way to screw things up. Sarai convinces Abram to sleep with a maidservant named Hagar and you can imagine what that does. (Jealousy, fighting, arguing and pain.) Hagar gives birth to Ishmael but God does not forget Hagar and her son but lets her know that her son will have descendants to numerous to count but Ishmael will be in constant conflict with his brothers.
Did Abram really think that God's plan involved sleeping with Sarai's maidservant? Was Ishmael supposed to be the one to carry on Abram's name? Did Abram realize that this wasn't the plan when Sarai and Hagar were at each others throats? How was Abram going to fix his family?
We are great at hurting each other. Maybe not intentionally but for some reason we do it anyway. Especially with our family. Just as Sarai and Abram tried to do things their way, we do things our way and we end up making a very big mess. We argue with our brothers and sisters, we fight with our parents, and we put ourselves into relationships that hurt our family. But there is one thing about Hagar and Ishmael that I think is important.
God did not forget about Hagar and Ishmael. Of course their would be consequences to what happened but God was still there for them. Even though we can cause allot of misery within our family or our family can cause us misery, God is still here. God may want us to do something that we may not want to do, like Hagar going back to Sarai and Abram, but if we trust in him things can get better.
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