Read
And the angel of the Lord said to her,
“Behold, you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”
Genesis 16:11-12
Reflect
Disobedience usually comes at a high price. Abram and Sarai found that out the hard way.
God had promised them a son, but year after year passed and nothing happened. At some point, the waiting had to feel unbearable. After all, how often does a couple in their 80s have a child? Yes, people in the early parts of the Bible lived much longer than we do now, but even then, an elderly woman becoming pregnant was hardly ordinary.
Eventually, impatience took over.
Sarai decided that if she could not bear a child herself, Abram should sleep with her servant Hagar so that he could at least have an heir. Abram agreed, and nine months later, when he was 86 years old, Ishmael was born.
The problem was that even though Sarai came up with the plan, she did not like what happened next. Once Hagar conceived, tension filled the household. Sarai became bitter, Hagar became distressed, and what had seemed like a practical solution quickly turned into conflict.
Later, after Isaac was finally born just as God had promised, the strain only deepened. Sarai insisted that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away, and Abram reluctantly agreed.
Here is what neither Abram nor Sarai fully counted on: God had no intention of abandoning Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness. He saw them, cared for them, and protected them. Ishmael too would become a great nation because he was also Abram’s son.
Instead of one family line, Abram now had two — and those two lines would carry tension for generations.
Traditionally, Ishmael is understood as an ancestor of many Arab peoples, just as Isaac became the father of Israel. Centuries later, entire civilizations would trace heritage through those lines, and many people see echoes of that ancient division even in the tensions of the modern Middle East. Whether history is ever that simple or not, Genesis makes one truth unmistakably clear: when people run ahead of God’s timing, they often create consequences far larger than they ever imagined.
That lesson still matters now.
Waiting for God is rarely easy. Sometimes you wonder whether He hears you, whether He cares, or whether the answer is ever coming at all. But forcing your own solution often creates problems that obedience would have avoided.
We all pray for different things, but too often we expect God to answer on our schedule rather than His.
The next time you ask Him for something, commit yourself to waiting for Him to answer in His own way and in His own time — and resist the temptation to run ahead with a plan of your own.
Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
