Ishmael

Sarai said to Abram, "You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. Genesis 16:2

There is a lot to ponder here.  First, I wonder if anyone in that time and circumstance wouldn't have done the same thing.  Think about it.  When you pray for something you really, really want, don't you look for signs that God might provide it?  Don't you ever wonder... "Maybe this opportunity I see before me is how God plans to answer my prayer."  It wasn''t a matter of impatience... it had been 10 years since God's promise. And if you have ever waited a long time to get pregnant, you know that you think about it every. single. day.  A handmaiden was not an unusual idea in that day or time, so they probably thought that God gave them this opportunity and they have ignored it for ten years!

Then there is the thought of what if.  What if Ishmael had not been born? Would that mean that we would not have Muslims today, so there would not be the fringe fundamentalist terrorist we have now?  Did God just deal with this mistake of Sarai and Abram by creating another religion?  Or was this God's intention after all?  

I do believe that even if the Muslim faith did not exist, we would have those on the fringes of some other religion or ideology that would try to terrorize the world.  It is a sad part of the world we live in that there will always be others who violently try to force others to believe in what they believe in.

If we believe that God is responsible for creating each life, then he must have intended for Ishmael to be born which would suggest that God intended for Sarai and Abram to become impatient and would suppose that God intended for Islam to eventually become a religion.  God could have mad Hagar unable to conceive, right?  So even in their plan to "help" God, God has the last word. Ishmael was the result.

God of All Life,

Help us to embrace every living person as one of your children... no matter their faith, no matter where they come from, no matter how they express themselves.  Let us love the way you love us. Unconditionally.