READ: Genesis 15-18 (19-23)
When my hubby and I married, I was a new Christian and he was not a believer. After several years of trying to convince him, I finally gave up and accepted this as what God wanted. Within a week of that surrender, the Lord touched his heart and he also became a Christian.
This was God’s doing. I know that yet too often forget that I cannot do His work. I must stay out of His to-do list yet I also must obey His instructions without trying to insert my ideas or change them to something easier or more to my liking.
At least two Bible women had problems like this. The first was Eve who somehow persuaded her husband to do what God had forbidden. Adam should not have listened to her and God called him on that. The consequences were drastic and have plagued the human race ever since:
And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3:17)
In today’s reading, Sarah did a similar thing. She knew her husband wanted a child and probably knew that God had promised them a child. But she also looked at her current barren state and decided on a plan to make the promise of God happen. She persuaded Abraham to go against God and carry out her plan:
And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. (Genesis 16:2)
The child from that servant fathered a nation, a people that opposed the people of God then and to this day. Sarah’s plan was not God’s plan and again, the consequences were drastic and still affect peace in the Middle East.
God visited this couple to reaffirm His plan. Sarah’s reaction to God’s assurance that she would have a child revealed her lack of faith in God to keep His promises and to do what looked impossible. She was past the age of child-bearing and her conclusions were not based at all on the power of God.
So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:12–15)
OBEDIENCE. These episodes remind me of God’s NT instruction to wives, an instruction that is not popular today and often discarded as a ‘cultural’ issue.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22–24)
Right before these verses, all Christians are told to be filled with the Spirit indicating the result will be worship and praise with thankfulness for everything — and “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Submission is an attitude of being yielded to the Lord so that I am willing to care for and meet the needs of others, free from the bondage of always wanting my own way. That means I should never think of giving them advice that is contrary to the will of God, or try to persuade them to do what I want rather than what God wants. It also means that when any Christian hears advice from others, we must line it up with God’s Word before accepting it.
This attitude is for all believers yet specifically demonstrated in marriage, which is a picture or depiction of the relationship between Christ and His Bride, the church. I can speak to my husband about the will of God and encourage him in following it, but if I try to impose my ideas and plans that are from my lack of faith in God, I have broken the pattern that God intends. My hubby needs discernment, never unthinking in listening to me.
Clearly the Bible speaks to all Christians about this, yet to me it is saying, “Be careful of trying to persuade your husband to follow your ideas and plans that are not from God.” I need to obey Him and encourage obedience, not do my own thing as if I have better ideas. Remember and learn from these women of old and remember the “Butterfly Effect” — apart from the grace of God, I could set off a ruinous chain of consequences.
(Butterfly Effect: The idea that a small change, action, or event can cause much larger one elsewhere or in the future through a chain reaction. An allusion to chaos theory, popularized by the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world might cause a tornado many miles away. Follow this link for more!)
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