Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 16-18.

I love writing about the account of Abram negotiating with God about how many righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah would be enough to save the city, because it should inspire us to realize how few people of God it takes to transform a society.  However, today I was really inspired to look at the account of how Ishmael came to be conceived.  It starts shortly after God had made a covenant with Abram that his offspring would inherit the land of Canaan.  We have here a clear example of bad interpersonal relationships.  Sarai suggested that Abram take Hagar to his bed in order to have children.  Then when Hagar became pregnant, she became conceited and despised Sarai.  Sarai blamed Abram for Hagar’s attitude.  Rather than do the work to fix things, Abram backed Sarai, allowing Sarai to mistreat Hagar.  Finally, rather than adjust her behavior towards Sarai, Hagar ran away.  God intervened and sent Hagar back.  When I read this, I go back and forth from feeling for each of the three of them, but all three handled this poorly.  Sarai lacked faith, Hagar got arrogant, and Abram failed to take control of the situation.  There was blame to go around in this situation.  Any one of them could have chosen to be the “bigger person”.  In the same way, most relationship issues we face can be resolved if we choose to act with love towards those around us.  It is also an example of the problems with polyamory.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.