What I learned this weekend…
June 16th, 2008 by Laura
This weekend I spoke at a women’s meeting. The subject was worship, so I found the first place that the Bible mentions worship (at least in my concordance)…and found that it was where Abraham took Isaac up on Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him…they went up on the mountain to worship first. Now before that stressful time started…a bigger mess was made. You see, God promised Sarah and Abe that they would conceive and become parents…that Abe would be a Father to many nations! Well, after the promise was made…Sarah got impatient and took things into her own hands. She told Abe to sleep with her servant Hagar. Out of that ridiculous encounter, Ishmael was born. Ishmael was NOT God’s plan for their lives. After a bit…Sarah did conceive, and they became the parents of Isaac. Isaac IS God’s plan…through his lineage, Abe would become a Father to many nations. Now, Fast forward a few years… It says in Genesis 21 that Sarah saw Ishmael (NOT God’s plan) mocking Isaac (God’s Plan). The little twerp was bullying Isaac. I can hear him now, ”I was the first born. I get Father Abe’s blessing, inheritance, yadayadayada. Dad loves me best…etc…” Now, if you are a momma…you know what gets your goat…especially when it comes to your kid. If someone picks on your kid, tattles on him, takes his toy, pokes him, bites him, hits him, whatever…you get your kid out of that situation. You go tell the kid to knock it off, you go to the teacher, principal, parents…whoever, and whatever to take care of the situation. Well, that’s what Sarah did. She saw Ishmael (NOT God’s plan) mocking Isaac (God’s plan), and told Abraham to send the child and his mother away, get them out of here, they are picking on OUR son! Abe was pretty upset…b/c no matter how you looked at it, he did father this child (NOT God’s plan)…but God told him, “Abe, don’t be upset, it’s okay…send them away…I will take care of them.” You see, God knew that they were NOT in His plans for Abe and Sarah, and they did not need to have the distraction and frustration of having something keep their focus off of what was His plan for them. So, He told them to send the child and his mother away. NOW…here is what I learned…we all have “Ishmaels” in our lives. Things that we have done, choices that we have made, divorces, addictions, bankrupcies, abuses, felonies, etc…things that we did or had done to us, that seem to mock us. They were NOT God’s plan for us, but we did them anyway. And here, years later…they mock us and tell us that we are not good enough to have God’s plan, God’s best for our lives. That we are not worthy of our Isaac! Finally, there comes a point that we must tell our Ishmael to shut up, stop mocking us and keeping us from God’s plan, our Isaac. We must send our Ishmael packing! How dare he (or that situation) mock what God wants for you! YOU are worthy because God has made you worthy! God is telling you, get rid of it, don’t allow it to mock you, to speak to you, to dictate your worth to you anymore! You are free to focus on what I have planned for you and your life!