<\/p>\n
Sarah took things into her own hands rather than trust in God.\u00a0 And what a mess it made of things, too.\u00a0 She reasoned that the Lord made her barren- it was His fault, and so, feeling sorry for herself and her husband, she takes matters into her own hands.\u00a0 She does what almost all of us would think as unthinkable-\u00a0 she sets her husband up with another woman so he would have an heir!\u00a0 And that resulted in a sad chain of events characterized by pride and arrogance; and jealousy and abusiveness, to name just a few.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the Gospel, we hear about what it means to really know God.\u00a0 As Jesus explains it, the real test about how well we know God is not how much we know about Him; neither is it how much we do in His name; rather, the real test is whether we are in tune to what the will of God is for us.\u00a0 The story about Sarah teaches us the practical side of that. Because no matter how hard it is to understand, and no matter how difficult it may seem to be to do, the will of God is the best that can possibly be for us- always.\u00a0 You see, the flip side of the matter; that is, taking matters into our own hands and trying to control life ourselves, will always result in a disaster because there are consequences that always happen when we run counter to God’s will.\u00a0 In Sarah and Haggar and Abraham’s case, the near term consequences were described for us and they were painful.\u00a0 But, if you are familiar with history, then you know that the long term consequences of this incident plague us even today in the form of relations between Judeo-Christian and Moslem peoples.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sin here is not the relations between Hagar and Abraham.\u00a0 That was actually an allowed custom in Abraham’s time.\u00a0 Rather, it was a lack of patience and a lack of trust in God’s will.\u00a0 Ironically, shortly after the Haggar incident in Genesis, the Lord appears to Abraham and guarantees that Sarah will bear him a Son.\u00a0 So, patience and trust would have prevailed.<\/p>\n
Still, this incident raises a question about discernment.\u00a0 When, for example do we accept that God does not will something for us- \u00a0like having children or getting a job or having some special possession- so we can move on to something else versus continuing to wait for what we pray for in the joyful expectation that our prayer will still be answered?\u00a0 Well, the advice Jesus gives us is this: build your foundation on solid rock.\u00a0 In other words, focus on something that centers you and keeps you always on firm ground.\u00a0 Having the right two way relationship with God means listening and waiting for His input back to you no matter how long it takes.\u00a0 So being patient and trusting in God’s will is just such a foundation. \u00a0\u00a0If you find yourself moving off in some other direction out of impatience or anger or frustration or any other such negative reaction, then it is probably not God’s will for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can avoid the turmoil that happened in the story about Sarah and Hagar because when the rains come and the wind blows around you in your life, the events that set the consequences in your life, so to speak, you will be safe on your foundation- trust in God’s will for you. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of 12th Week of Ordinary Time Gen 16: 1-12, 15-16; Mt 7: 21-29 Dc. Larry Brockman Sarah took things into her own hands rather than trust in God.\u00a0 And what a mess it made of things, too.\u00a0 She reasoned that the Lord made her barren- it was His fault, and so, feeling sorry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[53,52,51],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}