How many times do you take matters into your own hands? How often do you do what you think is best or perhaps what you want to? Have you done it after asking God for guidance and felt like he provided none? How did it work out for you? Were you better than before?
We are often impatient. When God doesn’t answer are request immediately, we take matters into our own hands. We determine what we think is best, or at least the least bad choice, and go with that. It may or may not work out for us, and we may never know what God intended.
Abraham and Sarah made a choice they thought they needed to make. However, they did not need to do what they did. Abraham and Sarah were growing older. Thinking they were nearing the end of their childbearing years and having no child, Sarah told Abraham to go to her slave to attempt to have a child. Hagar, Sarah’s slave, became pregnant and gave birth to Ishmael.
Several years later, God told Abraham that Sarah would give birth to a son. Sarah laughed, for she was eighty-nine years old. She gave birth to Isaac a year later. A few years after that, Sarah became jealous of Ishmael. She wanted Abraham to send Hagar and Ishamel away. Things had not turned out as Sarah thought they would.
We can become impatient or think we must make a decision before we really need to make it. That decision may be made out of fear or anxiety, rather than relying and waiting on God. As often as we may say that God works in his time, we don’t always want to wait for him. However, it is best if we wait for God to provide clear direction to make our decision.
I pray we all choose to trust and wait for God. I pray we do not allow fear nor anxiety to force our decision. I pray each one of us seek God’s guidance and know he will do what’s best for us. Trust God. Wait for God. Seek God’s guidance. God will do what’s best for you.
Genesis 21:9-10 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”
Marty Pressey 