O that Ishmael might live

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

“And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.”

It is very hard to live by faith. It is much easier to plan and scheme because they we feel that we have some control over our situation. However, “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” (Psalm 118: 8) Abraham set out at God’s command without a clear idea of his objective, this is a sin in our modern day when everyone wants to be in complete control. But God was in control and Abraham trusted the LORD to oversee his life. Along the way he and Sarah had their crises and hope and there were certain problems remaining. Abraham was still struggling with the idea that a post menopausal woman would have a child. He wanted the Lord to think about the son that he already had, Ishmael, after all it would be so easy for all the blessings to go to Ishmael. But God doesn’t work that way, He always has a perfect plan and a perfect purpose and He will not bend from His plan or purpose just to suit our arrangements. In this case, the LORD did promise that Ishmael would indeed become the father of a great nation but he would not be the one through whom the promised deliverer would finally come. Sarah would have son, even though it was impossible, and the Promised One Who would bruise Satan’s head would come from that son. At this stage God finally gave Abraham a timeline and said that the son would be born at the appointed time one year away.