God also said to Abraham, "Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah [c] shall be her name." 16 And I will bless her, and I will also give you her son; yes, I will bless her, and she will become the mother of nations; Kings of peoples will come from her. 17 And Abraham fell on his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a son be born a hundred years old? And Sara, already ninety years old, has to conceive? 18 And Abraham said to God: Let Ishmael live before you. "
Genesis 17: 15-18
God tells Abraham that he will give him a son, and that he will give it to Sarah; But Abraham says: May Ishmael live before you. Who was Ishmael? Ishmael was the first son Abraham had in a moment of weakness for Sara. Abraham always believed. God promises her a son, and Sara is barren and tired of waiting; Then, she took advantage of the culture, the law, the rule of that time, and tells her husband to sleep with her servant and give her a son. The interesting thing is that Abraham believed, the one he had not believed was Sara; She faltered in faith. Abraham believed; Being an old man, he sleeps with his servant and they have that creature, and Abraham thinks he received his promise. For thirteen years he raised that son with love, with affection; For him, it was the promise fulfilled. But, years later, God tells him: What you have is not what I promised you. Because what you have is the product of your strength, and not of your hope in me. And God says: I'm going to give you a son with Sara. And the first thing Abraham does is laugh. Later, the son of the promise is born, and they call him Isaac, which means: God made me laugh. We can see this in two ways: Like God is going to give you something that is going to make you laugh; Or like whenever you see Isaac you'll remember that you laughed when God told you he was going to give you something.
Many times, we do not really believe that God can give us what He promised us. We prefer not to be the mockery of the world because the world laughs at our expectations, our hopes, who we are, that we say that God is going to do something. But God gives you an Isaac so that people can see that even though you laughed at what God said he was going to give you, He gave it to you, He gave it to you, and today what you are seeing is what He said He was going to To do with you.
At that moment of Abraham's life, everything was getting more complicated, becoming more difficult, and Abraham had lost all hope; His body no longer worked, Sarah's either; The thing was complicated, but Abraham kept waiting on God. And God told Abraham for justice when everything was getting complicated but he kept waiting for something to happen. The big thing is that, a year later, Sara gets pregnant and gives birth. When the children begin to grow, the Bible says that Ishmael begins to annoy Isaac, and Sarah asks Abraham to let Ishmael go. When God gives you what he told you he was going to give you, that loan you took wrongly bothers you.
What God said he was going to give you, he will give it to you; The problem is that you are carrying Ismaeles who do not let you enjoy the promises of God. How many things today are you living that you always expected to live, but you can not enjoy because you have an Ishmael in your life? You have an Ishmael for your past decisions; And it is very interesting because Sara asks Abraham to dismiss Ishmael because Ishmael reminded him that she had not believed. Abraham was sorry to take Ishmael out; He had grown fond of that boy, but had to let him go because God told him he had to let him go; and he had to believe that God would take care of him; because the only way to make space for the Isaacs of your life, is to let go of your Ismaeles. God does not take you out of the Ismaeles; You have to let them go, knowing that what God promised you is going to be accomplished in some way or another.
God is going to complete his word about your life. Do not let the weakness in your mind, in a moment of difficulty, make you have things that are imitation of what God has for you, because one day it will complicate the matter. If you no longer have strength, wait; If everything is getting complicated, wait. Have an expectation of something, that God is going to do it. Maybe the method will not be as you expected, but God is going to fulfill his promise about your life. You can live bitter, frustrated all your life, because the method that you thought was not given, but your hope must remain the same.
May this word bring peace to your life and help you understand that what gives you strength is your hope because, if not, you will weaken. Your body is going to continue weakening as you can, what you can not do is waver, even if you get tired; What makes you stay and not continue making wrong decisions, is your hope. How much time have you lost because of your incorrect decisions? If you dared to wait, to believe in the Lord and give him space to do the work in your life, everything would be different. Learn to wait, and let God direct you in every decision.
Let your Ishmael go, that which has embittered you all your life, things that you have obtained in your life in moments of weakness, and that do not let you enjoy the promise of God for you. May your faith never falter, may it never fail. Jesus prayed for Peter so that his faith would not be lacking. In a moment of weakness, Peter denied Christ; Judas made a grave mistake, but the moment of weakness of Judas led him to hang himself in a tree, while the moment of Peter's weakness led him to meet the Lord himself.
Do not make permanent decisions to temporary situations; Learn to free your life, wait on the Lord, ask for direction, make decisions based on what God has told you, and allow Him to fulfill your hope for your life. The Ismaeles are people, things that you should let go; And, if you have some Ishmael today, let it go.
