Genesis 16:1-3

Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children…
… and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

The promise had been given. God had told Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. But time kept passing, and nothing seemed to be happening. Abram was now eighty six. Sarai was seventy six. And from where they stood, it had to feel like the whole thing was stalled out.

That is where trouble usually starts.

There is often a gap between the giving of God’s promise and the fulfillment of it. And that gap can be a difficult place, because it is there that faith gets tested. It is there that the heart starts asking questions. It is there that we start looking around, trying to figure out how God is going to pull off what He said.

But God’s delays are never careless.

He is not procrastinating. He is not distracted. He is not too busy to remember what He said. The delay is part of the preparation. He uses that waiting season to stretch faith, to deepen trust, and to teach us to lean on Him. Faith does not grow when everything happens immediately. It grows in the waiting.

Sarai, however, came to the conclusion that something had to be done.

Since she had not borne a child, she suggested a solution that was perfectly acceptable in the culture around them. In the world of Ur and Babylon, a barren wife could give her handmaid to her husband, and the child born through that arrangement would be counted as her own. So this was not shocking by the standards of the day. It was common. It was accepted. It made sense culturally.

But it was still unbelief.

That is important to see. Just because something is normal in the culture does not mean it is right before God. Sarai’s plan was reasonable by human standards, but it was still an attempt to accomplish spiritually what God had promised supernaturally. It was man stepping in to help God out.

And Abram listened.

That is how simply the text puts it. “Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.” God had spoken, but now Abram listened to another voice. And that is so often how failure begins. The issue is not always open rebellion. Sometimes it is just choosing the wrong voice in the waiting.

I understand this passage more than I wish I did.

Because when God seems slow, I start getting tempted to manufacture results. I start thinking up ways to make things happen. I start trying to solve in the flesh what can only be brought forth by faith. And the problem is, flesh born solutions always create pain. They may look practical in the moment, but they never produce the peace that comes from simply trusting the Lord.

That is what we see here.

Abram and Sarai were not trying to run from God altogether. They were trying to bring about the promise in their own way. But whenever I try to fulfill God’s word by human effort, I only create messes that the next chapter of my life will have to deal with.

So there is a warning here for all of us. Be very careful in the gap. Be careful in the waiting. Be careful when the promise seems delayed and the pressure starts building. That is when the enemy loves to offer a practical alternative to simple trust.

But God never needs my cleverness to fulfill His promise.

He only asks for faith.

And though faith may struggle in the waiting, it is still far safer to wait on the Lord than to rush ahead and try to do His work in the energy of the flesh.