Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have ordained strength, because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger. (Ps 8,3)

Dear friends, I try to post a new essay here every Saturday and Wednesday evening, but today I could not. It is "the time of war" (Eccl. 3:8) and my thoughts go out to those who are fighting and suffering in Ukraine. Please let us pray for them. Prayer has power, even from the mouths of babes (and that is how helpless we sometimes feel). But they too can build a wall against adversaries and stop the fight.

Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down;
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
Shoot out Your arrows and destroy them.
Stretch out Your hand from above;
Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters,
From the hand of foreigners...

(Ps 144,5-7)

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” ... Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac (which means he laughs)... (Gen, 17,17.19)

This is already the second visitation in which Abram struggles for faith right before the face of God. We mentioned that the first covenant in Gen. 15 would not have come into being at all if Abram had not asked God for a sign ("by what do I know?"). Now Abram is in a similar situation, but with the difference that in the meantime he has thrown in the towel and decided for his own solution, for which he did not need God. That's why it's harder for him to believe now than it was the first time. He is now deeply disappointed in his soul, because after the first covenant he waited for God for months, but nothing happened. Should he give up what he already has firmly in hand and exchange it again for the doubtful uncertainty in which he has already been disappointed once?

Every encounter with God was extraordinary for Abram. The presence of divine life-giving power overshadowing him was an indescribable experience. But now he was thrown into such inner turmoil by God's words about the birth of another child (after all, he already had a son!) that he lost control of how he reacted. He found himself laughing right in front of God at the thought that it might be true. It was as if he was saying: if you're serious about this, God, you're a little late. Back then, thirteen years ago, when we were waiting for you, maybe it was still possible. But now it's really over. Neither Sarah nor I can definitely have children anymore.

Faith, in the biblical sense of trust, is not given to anyone somehow unwittingly, as unbelievers sometimes think. As if God gave it to someone and denied it to another one, so that he cannot believe and therefore there is no use in trying to attain it. But it is not so. In fact, faith is born in struggle and is fought for as one rises from the valley of unbelief to the heights of faith. Abraham, the father of faith, walked this path before us, and God acknowledged his struggle with kind humor (Isaac gets a name to commemorate Abram's hidden laughter). Why? Because in the course of his conversation with God, Abram eventually came to the point where he wanted to believe again - but in his human frailty, he just couldn't. How do we know? By the actions that followed that conversation. Abram finally obeyed God in everything God asked of him, and this obedience is the fruit of faith (Jm 2:14, J 14:21) It says more about our heart and attitude toward God than words. When Abram spoke to God, his attitude was like that of the father of the possessed boy, "I believe, just help my unbelief!"

How precious it is that we can profess the same thing at times when we fail to rise by faith above our problems and are seized with gloom - or ironic laughter at what would be the point of going on when there clearly is no way forward.

And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” (Gen 17,18)

After the birth of Ishmael, Abram was internally divided. He clung to him, and as he grew (and while he was a tender child) he loved him more and more, as only a man in old age can cling to his only offspring. He felt in his heart that he was thus somewhat departing from God - the child of Sarah by God's promise, or the child of Hagar, whom he had acquired by his own efforts - these were two different worlds, and he had to choose in which he would abide. It was simply not possible to connect them and be in both at the same time because they were mutually exclusive.

In the early years after Ishmael's birth, therefore, Abram both missed and did not quite miss God. He had had his abundance of earthly blessings, and now he was finally fulfilling the last need he felt in this world. He switched into "God didn't give me a child, so it's a good thing I at least have Ishmael" inward mode. He sensed the silence that now fell towards him from God's side. But he was also aware of another thing that he didn't want to admit out loud at first... namely that he might not even want God to visit him again. If that were to happen, he would feel very ashamed before Him, and more importantly, the situation in his family would become extremely complicated.

But as Ishmael grew and his confrontational nature became apparent, he found himself secretly despairing at times. That's when his confidence began to crumble, and he began to be prepared to change his mind in his heart and, despite what he had done with Hagar, to accept God's Word for himself so that it could "become flesh."

So God did not come to him by accident after thirteen years, his silence lasted until there was no point in breaking it. But when He finally came, everything was turned upside down. Abram had already secretly doubted about Ishmael, but such a great change of mind, the loss of the only security he had had so far, the complete change of life setting, it was all too much for him at once. So he offers Ishmael to God ("may Ishmael live near you!"), his most precious treasure, which he cannot yet give up in his heart.

Every man must sometimes choose between the near certainties and the distant better way. The proverb about the bird in the hand being worth two in the bush is 100% true in life; but it is not quite true in God's way. There, the distant one is more important: our journey, according to Christ's words, begins with the loss of the certain in favor of the eternal. "For whoever would preserve his life...".

Abram, like us, tended to grasp the near certainties and leave the distant blessings to the dreamers. What is certain, however, is that if he had not changed his mind, he would never have become the Father of faith.
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Personal note from the author: I write these reflections twice a week (mostly on Saturdays and Wednesdays) and hope to be able to continue for long - there is a lot in Abraham story still worth seeing! But it is a matter of time / energy as I am not a full-time minister. What my time/energy is no more sufficient to, is the promotion of this blog. Therefore, if you find these articles helpful, just consider sharing the link with others who may also be interested. Thank you!

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless." (Gen 17,1)

In order to perceive God, one must be ready for it inside. Jesus put it well in the parable of the sower - good seed alone is not enough to produce good fruit. There must also be good soil ready for it. Try to speak to a crowd of people on the street about the beauty of the morning dawn, and your words will be picked up only by those who are attentive to such things or, on the contrary, who have not seen them for a long time and thirst for them. Others will probably be deaf to it.

Abram's heart, therefore, was gradually prepared to hear a word from God and to receive it by faith. In this way he would become a participant in the greatest miracle by which God guides a man through the history of salvation and by which He delivers him, namely, the birth of new life out of death. If life of our age is not to end irrevocably in eternal death, there is no way out of it except through the "valley of the shadow of death" into the heavenly divine life. In other words, it is a matter of death and resurrection. This was Abram's only hope of new life as his body was gradually dying.

After thirteen years, God broke the silence and came to Abram again. Until now, He had never told him so clearly and universally what He was asking of him, as of every man of God: "walk before me always, be blameless!" (Note that we usually say we walk "with" God, not "before" God). So Abram is to be like an open book to God, and he is to be careful of the integrity of his ways. No idol has ever made such demands on its worshipers. It would be an enslaving demand if God were not love, in reality or (beware!) even in Abram's idea of Him. For then it would be a form of internal religious prison.

How precious it is when we know from another Scriptures (what even Abram already increasingly perceived), that God is truly "love." (1 J 4,16).

Someone said that the worst thing that can happen to a man of God is a silent God. The man who does not believe in God and does not count on Him has it easier, something like that does not frighten him (at least for the time being). But on the one who has come to know, the weight of silence begins to lie, which is not overcome in the way we usually respond - by intensified religious zeal, by swearing or by offering sacrifices (i.e. asceticism). It is as if these things do not interest God at all if the inner attitude of man is not in order. Often it is obedience on some particular issue about which God has spoken to man which is very important to Him. It doesn't help to leave it out and instead offer an overabundance of effort in ten other areas where we obey quite gladly.

Abram may have continued to run his farm judiciously, set an example for his neighborhood, and helped the poor who sought their camp. He gave generously to them out of the surpluses with which the farm abounded. But his inner life for the next thirteen years was split between two positions. The pleasure in his son and the joy in seeing his first steps and growth. But on the other side, the strange feeling that he had lost the intimacy of God, the blessing of heaven that had been so close to him before. In the moments when he realized this, the joy in Ishmael fell away and filled him rather with a certain gloominess. It was as if he did not know what to do next.

One day he was visited by some people with invitation to a meeting that was held in a large tent on the plain outside Gomorrah. They were smiling and trying to please Abram. God loves you, they told him. I know, Abram replied thoughtfully. He loves you just the way you are! I know, he said. And you don't have to do anything to make it so. Yes, I know that too. Will you come then to rejoice and receive new strength of faith?

He answered them, after some meditation, "Don't be angry, but I can't now. You mean well, but I won't fool myself. My heart is bleeding. For I have met the Lord face to face. It's not enough to paint heaven in my mind. I want to experience it for real, like I used to. But I can't, and I think I know why.

The only thing I don't know is how I can get it back."

 

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. (Gen 16,16)

After Ishmael's birth, joy outweighed the other restless thoughts that were in Abram's mind. First, there were the echoes of his conflicts with Sarah, but also the insistent feeling that something was different now in relation to God. It was as if he didn't perceive God as he used to, and couldn't find his way to Him in his heart. Abram was aware that by begetting Ishmael he had expressed his distrust of God. If he had followed him to Canaan before and recognized how real God was in comparison to his earlier idols, how he was guiding him and blessing him, had he not dismissed it all and expressed that it would actually have been easier to stay in his native land, not leave it at all, and beget a descendant with a slave girl there? He must have asked himself if he still believed God's promise that he would be heir to the land, since he did not believe the promise of a child. Was God really deceiving him?

Abram waited so that God came close again and spoke to him. Slowly, he began to recognize that it would also be up to him to confess his error. After the critical experience of the last few months, it was impossible not to see the difference between walking on the blessed paths, or experiencing the restlessness of the ways in which he had stubbornly asserted his will against God's.

But the oppressive silence that lay between his tent and heaven did not disappear for another thirteen years. Heaven was closed and God no longer came to him.

So the one who heard the last word that came from God to Abram's house was - Hagar. But it wasn't a word that would uplift Abram. Especially as he could see more and more clearly in the years to come the character of Ishmael coming to expression. Abram watched the boy grow up and realized that he hadn't experienced an encounter with God like he used to since Ismael had been in the world.

While forgiveness can be obtained freely because it does not depend on us, spiritual riches cannot. When Abram set out on the path of discipleship, he climbed higher for eleven years. He came to know God in his life's journey and through the revelations he received because he was close to God, but then he lost this wealth through his unbelief. It would seem that the self-will and walking in his own ways would be a minor episode that he would just confess and in a turn of events be back where he was before. But this is not true of spiritual fullness. One has to climb again the mountain on which one used to stand.

The second ascent, however, is much more difficult.

And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. (Gen 16,11-12)

Unable to cut himself off from Hagar and the child, Abram chose a somewhat alibi solution to Sarah's insistence - he left Hagar to her own devices. Sarah bullied her until Hagar ran away from her. During a stop at the spring, a messenger of God visited her and told her to humble herself and return. A lonely pregnant woman had little chance of survival.

After Hagar's departure, Abram was overwhelmed with tremendous pain, for in doing so he had lost his only child. When Hagar returned shortly with a changed attitude that seemed to allow her to stay, and Sarah's tough attitude was softened, his lost joy returned. He thanked God for it, his world had brighter colors again, hope returned, the expectation of good things, and the future was given a bright name: ISMAEL.

Abram felt that he now needed some time to rest, to calm his turbulent emotions, to get his life back to normal. He had been through one of the most difficult periods of his life and he felt that the worst was finally behind him. In the end, the solution that came about due to Hagar's inner change was actually the best possible. Hagar can stay and Sarah will then accept her and Abram's child as her own.

Clearly, Abram still did not fully know God's ways. Had he known the fruit that would come from his act, he probably would never have done it. It is as if the conflict, that accompanied his expectation, was permanently imprinted on Ishmael's character, "he shall be an untamable man... his hand shall be against all, and the hand of all against him." Where Abram and Sarah had been looking forward to a lovely time with the nice boy, a rough man of rugged manners, of a wild, unbridled nature, began to emerge. The child brought joy briefly, but as he grew, coexistence with him became increasingly difficult and conflict was an everyday occurence. He was not yet twelve years old, and Abram again began to bow under the weight of gloomy thoughts: how only will things go on if Ishmael does not change? He could feel his strength ebbing away as the years went by, he would have liked to be sure that he had secured the future of his family and farm, but the question kept creeping into his mind: how will everything turns out when Ishmael becomes the head of the house?

Then Sarai said to Abram, “My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me.” So Abram said to Sarai, “Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.” And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence.(Gen 16,5-6)

It was nothing new under the sun that women would occasionally had a brush with one another and the high-pitched notes of their shrieking voices would echo into the surrounding tents. But the next day they were able to stand on the doorstep and gossip about news, relatives or children. But there was now an implacability between Sarah and Hagar that seemed to sink deeply under the skin of both. Sarah was like changed. She, who had devised the whole plan, was suddenly beginning to feel bitterness not only towards Hagar - but also towards the unborn child she had been looking forward to so much!

Abram had hitherto believed that the situation would be settled, but now he was walking around more and more gloomy. When, after a few weeks, Sarah finally asked him to banish the pregnant Hagar, he of course refused - what the hell was Sarah thinking, was he about to give up his own child?

He was faced with a stark choice: Sarah or Hagar; Sarah or... his child. At that moment he fell into a heavy despondency. He could see no reasonable path, no solution. It occurred to him that, after all, it was all her fault, so wasn't it right that she should be the one to pay? He had never told her about the hardest choice he was making at that moment, how much he was ashamed of it, but he couldn't help himself: wouldn't it only be right that the one who should leave was... Sarah? Abram could start a new family, with a woman who would give him not one, but a dozen more children, and their laughter would echo in his tent, the laughter of new hope instead of this drudgery that was completely consuming him.

"May the Lord judge between you and me." So that is how the relationship of two once beloved people can escalate. How she can be blinded, he thought - Sarah is crying out to my God to help her... against me! Abram felt so pressured that he found himself feeling disgust for her at times. The thought of the rejection of his child crushed him. Who was more important to him now: her or it? He had to decide, and it was the hardest decision of his life.

For the second time he buried the hope of his own child, and it was clear to him that now it was definite. The first time it happened when he lost faith that his God would give it to him. The second time, when he banished the woman who was pregnant with his child to save his marriage. A marriage he no longer felt comfortable in.

Abram was devastated. There was alienation in his tent, he felt guilty for the way he had treated Hagar, he felt that he could find no understanding on either side, and most importantly, he had written off all the good that the future could still bring him and to which he had clung so tightly. For he knew at that moment that futher hope is nowhere to be found.