Own it

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

OWN IT

Gen 16:1-6

16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." 6 "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

NIV

Whose idea was it that Abram took Hagar and was intimate with her, so that she conceived? It was Sarai who put that into motion. Hagar was her maidservant, meaning she had no rights and had to do as her mistress desired or ordered. Yet, after Hagar became pregnant, she began to despise Sarai. We don't know exactly why, but we wonder if Hagar was fine with getting to be intimate with her mistress's husband, but she was not counting on getting pregnant, although that was Sarai's purpose for giving her to Abram. The story, or the point that is a lesson for us, is how Sarai responded. Once what she had purposed happened, she blamed Abram because of the way Hagar was acting toward her. He would have nothing to do with it, telling her Hagar was in her hands, not his. This is your own fault; don't blame me. We are right back to Adam blaming Eve, and Eve blaming the serpent. We should understand that if, for any reason, we fall on hard times, it is nobody's fault but our own. All too often, we hear people blame the government for charging us high taxes, for the price of this or that, or for their inability to get ahead. Who is in charge of our lives? Do believers blame the Lord because they are experiencing difficult times? Do we have nothing to do with how our lives play out? We do not think Sarai consulted with the LORD before making her choice that caused her pain. How many choices in life do we make without consulting the Lord? We are not just pawns in his heavenly chess game; he has given us the freedom to choose or to make mistakes all on our own. So then, when we make that mistake, we need to own it, not blame anyone else, including the Lord. There is no excuse good enough; it was our choice; we need to own it.