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.