I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.

     Sarai realized that she was getting old and had been unable to give Abram a son. In order to give him a son, Sarai encouraged Abram to take her servant Hagar as his wife. Abram did as Sarai suggested and Hagar became pregnant. When Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to treat Sarai with contempt. Sarai went to Abram and demanded that he do something about it. Abram responded that Hagar was Sarai’s servant and Sarai should do to Hagar whatever she thought necessary. Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that Hagar ran away. An angel of God came to Hagar as she was by a spring near the desert and told her to return to Sarai and to submit to her. The angel told Hagar that she would have a son and that her son would have many descendants, but that he would live in hostility to all of his relatives. So Hagar returned and bore Abram a son who Abram named Ishmael.
     We have two lessons here (perhaps three). The first is that Sarai knew that Abram wanted a son that she had been unable to bear. She tried to solve the problem by giving him her servant as his second wife. Rather than being satisfied with her marriage and trusting in God to work things out for the best, she tried to make her husband happy by allowing him to have another woman as wife. Then we have the second mistake. This one was by Hagar. Because she was able to get pregnant and Sarai had never been able to do so, she thought her position had become elevated so that she could mistreat Sarai. Hagar thought that she now had an in with Abram over his wife of many years. It turns out she was wrong, Abram loved Sarai very much and wanted her to be happy. But this is where we see what is perhaps the third lesson here. Abram failing to deal with things as he ought to have. When Sarai offered him Hagar, he should have told her no, she (Sarai) was enough for him even if she did not give him a son. Then he compounded this by telling Sarai to deal with the problem of Hagar rather than dealing with it himself.
     When Abram was 99 years old, God appeared to him again and told him that He, God, would give him, Abram, countless descendants. Further God made a covenant with Abram that He would give Abram’s descendants the land of Canaan and it would be their possession forever. On the other side of the covenant, Abram and his male descendants obligation in the covenant is to be circumcised. God then changes Abram’s and Sarai’s name. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. God then tells Abraham that Sarah will give him a son. Abraham thinking of his, and Sarah’s advanced age (he was almost 100, Sarah was almost 90) asked God to grant the blessing through Ishmael. God replied that he would bless Ishmael and make him the father of a great nation, but that the covenant would be through a son to be born to Sarah, whom Abraham was to name Isaac. Abraham followed through on the covenant by taking Ishmael and all of the men of his household and having them all circumcised.
     An unspecified time after this (although it could not have been long), Abraham saw sitting in the entrance to his tent when he saw three men standing nearby. He immediately went to them and offered them hospitality (food and refreshment from their journey). When the food was prepared, Abraham served it to the men. While they were eating, the men asked Abraham where his wife Sarah was. Abraham told him that she was inside the tent. One of the men replied that he would return about that time next year and by then Sarah would have a son. Sarah was eavesdropping (not hard to do when all you have between you and the conversation is a tent wall) and laughed silently to herself, thinking that there was no way a woman of her advanced age could have a child to a man as old as Abraham. Then the Lord asked Abraham why Sarah laughed did the two of them not believe that with God anything is possible.
     Both Abraham and Sarah believed that their days of being productive were over. It was time to relax, rest on their laurels and live out their days. God responded that no, all things were possible for Him and that if He decided that a 100-year-old man with a 90-year-old wife were the people for the responsibility of raising a child to walk in His paths, then that would come to pass. We are never too old (nor too young) to accomplish the tasks to which God calls us. If God is calling you to something, do not think that the time is past for you to do whatever it is, even if it is something that is normally the province of the young.

     Jesus continued His Sermon on the Mount by talking about doing things to look righteous. When we give to those in need, we should do it in order to help them, not to make ourselves look good. In fact, in order to keep our motivations honest, we should not tell anyone what we are doing. The same is true of prayer and fasting. We should pray and fast in order to become closer to God. In order to prevent ourselves from doing acts of righteousness for the purpose of appearing righteous, we should perform those acts privately. Jesus is not teaching that we should hide the fact that we fast and pray, rather we should avoid being ostentatious about it. A good example is found in Daniel. Daniel went into his upstairs room and prayed three times a day. Everybody knew he did it, but he did not do it out in the public square to make sure that everyone knew how righteous he was. We should behave the same way. Don’t act righteous, be righteous.
     Jesus goes on to say that rather than attempting to gather material possessions we should serve God and acquire spiritual capital. If we focus our attention on acquiring material possessions we will make the material world the focus of our lives. If, on the other hand, we make pleasing God the focus of our attention we will receive the fulfillment of acquiring eternal riches. We cannot serve both God and the material world. We have to choose where we will seek to focus our attention. I constantly struggle with turning my focus away from physical desires and pleasures and turning it to doing the will of God.

     Like the psalmist I will turn to the Lord for protection. So many of the problems in this world would be solved if more of us would be willing to trust God to provide our protection. Of course, this means be willing to recognize that sometimes we will suffer consequences for our bad decisions, or that we have to give up things we want in order to serve God. What we fail to recognize is that we will suffer the negative consequences of our bad decisions, when we attempt to avoid those consequences we only make matters worse. God is just and I will praise His name. I will turn from my sins and take the punishment He metes out for my past failures. I will throw myself on His mercy and rely on His love to avoid the suffering that I surely deserve.

     The last two days we have read of the consequences of ignoring common sense. Today the writer advises us to go beyond common sense and seek for wisdom and understanding. Let us strive to expand our knowledge and understanding so that we know what to do in order to please God. All too often I settle for what comes easy to me, rather than seeking even greater knowledge and understanding.