When it all goes wrong (Genesis 16-18; Mark 6)

Do you ever think God needs a little help to move his plans along? Despite all the amazing promises that God made, Abram and Sarai still think God needs their help with his salvation plan! To be fair, 10 years have passed (Abram is now 86, see Genesis 16:16) and there is still no pitter patter of little feet, no cries of a baby. So, Sarai tells Abram to try having a child with Hagar.

It’s almost a rerun of the Fall (Genesis 3), the man listened to the voice of his wife and took. Here it’s even worse as it’s not just a piece of fruit but a person who is taken.  Failure to trust God leads to misery.  Abram and Sarai fail to trust God and it leads to so much pain and hurt.   We see the tragic consequences for Hagar, she treats Sarai with contempt and so is sent away, she feels all alone, no one understands her pain. Into this tragedy we see the kindness of God in calling her by name. She was partly to blame for the way she’d treated Sarai, but God’s grace doesn’t dry up when we make mistakes. God hears her affliction and sees her suffering and she is comforted.

Amazingly God’s grace doesn’t dry up for Abram and Sarai either.  Over 10 years later, the Lord gives another promise to be Abram’s God (17v7), that would be enough – to know God as your God is the most wonderful thing.  But there’s more, God repeats and expands his earlier promises, he gives Abram a new name (Abraham) to remind him he will become the father of many nations, and he gives him the sign of circumcision.  This was a sign for believers and their children that pointed to the need for our sinful hearts to be circumcised, a sign that showed that our uncleanness needs to be cut off. It pointed to the need for new hearts and it pointed to one of Abraham’s descendants whose blood would be shed so that we can have new hearts.  

In the New Testament, we have a new covenant sign of baptism, it’s a sign of our sin being washed away. It’s a sign you belong to God. When you feel you’ve let God down by failing to trust Him, by taking matters into your own hands, why not look back to your baptism and remind yourself that God’s grace doesn’t dry up when you make mistakes and thank God for being your God.