“And Abraham said unto God, O that
Ishmael might live before thee!” Genesis 17:18
With so much of this world experienced in the natural; it
is difficult for mankind to take God at his word. The propensity is to
rationalize, reevaluate, stress, worry, do something to take your mind of it,
and then repeat. The devil thrives in this and the natural man longs for
it, but God never intended for this. In fact the opposite. He wants
us to be happy, peaceful, contented, and complete in Him.
Abraham was called of God to leave his country and go out; not knowing where he went. This
took faith and trust, but the Lord promised him that he would be a father of
many nations and his seed would be as numerable as the sand on the shore. Abraham was a man of faith in total but he
had his moments where he wavered, and as the years rolled by, still no child,
no son and perceiving Sarah as barren; they took matters into their own hands
and Abraham had a child with Sarah’s maidservant and called him Ishmael. Time pasted and God visited Abraham to tell
him that he would indeed have a son, through Sarah, and that son would be the
promised child. Through Isaac God would multiple Abraham’s seed and make
him a Father of many nations. In response to this news Abraham laughed in
disbelief and said “O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
God has given wonderful promises us. His Word is full of
promises and commandments that, taken with a natural understanding, it would
seem impossible that they could be for us, or be carried out by us. God
said that he sent his Son to save us, redeem us, and live within us. God
said that he wants a relationship with us. God said that he wants to
bless us, keep us from sin, and bring us to a home in heaven. God requires
that we love our neighbor and our enemy, bless those that curse us, and pray
for those who persecute us. In a sense, he has offered to us the same
promise on the same terms that he offered Abraham. Now, our seed may not
be multiplied and such like, but if we have faith and trust God above all else;
we will be blessed and we will glorify the Father. Curiously, as the
promise to Abraham is much the same as the promise to us, so our response to
the promise can be like Abraham. When Abraham said: “O that Ishmael might
live before thee” he was vocalizing an inward struggle, the same struggle that
we ourselves can sometimes have when we hear God’s promises;
rationalization. In a moment, the human mind can take what God says and
filter it through the natural, leaving only the rational which we then counter
offer to God as the obvious path. Abraham knew the promise, the name of
the promise child, and the mother of that child. The promise was for a child
not yet born, and the mother way too old to have kids. It was in a word,
impossible. So, taking into account what God said, then applying the
nature filter, the only rational conclusion was that Ishmael, his only son,
might live before God. God clothed the earth, and feeds the sparrow, and
he promised that he would guide us and take care of us, but we think: “I know,
but, the bills are piling up, no job in sight and I got do something; maybe he
meant I should take this job that he provided for me that will cause me to work
late nights and takes me far from my church family.” God says we can be made free from sin, but
the natural filter is applied in our minds and we begin to think: “surely we
cannot because man is wicked, the world is wicked, and you just can’t live
every single day without one slip up. Conclusion, God meant we should
try to live free from sin and Jesus will cover the difference.” It may
not always be this cut and dry, but the reality is that behind the spirit of
natural rationalization lies a little seed of doubt that if fed, will cause us
to lose our faith and trust in God. The devil loves to prey on our
anxiety and worry, causing us, almost forcing us it feels like, to move into a
situation that breeds separation from God. We barter, and rationalize the
situation, trying to fit the square peg into a round hole, when in reality the
solution is the promise, and the action only to trust and obey.
The happiest, peaceful, and most content person on earth is the one who has their
complete and total faith in God. It is difficult for me to describe, nor
do I think I can totally describe, what kind of lifestyle they have or clothes
they wear. What job they hold or church they attend, but whatever that
looks like in the day to day is secondary to the fact that it is where we all
want to be and can be. We can have
complete fellowship with the Father, like Jesus, having our total trust in him;
not rationalizing, or doubting, or worrying, or in unbelief, but totally and
completing trusting in the Father. Going out every day, not doing your
own will, but His, and delighting in that.
