will & t +1

Will and I are doing a Bible reading plan. We’re on schedule to read through the Bible twice in one year. Four chapters a day from four different books. Thus far, it has been really surprising. 

I’m surprised by this:

routine is making room for spontaneity

How can God really speak through scripture to the day-to-day joys and struggles when I’m on a “plan”? The chapters we read are set. But our lives are not so set. So how can the two align?

I don’t know.

But they can. And they are. (And I think the answer might have something to do with our all-knowing, sovereign God who always desires to speak to his sons and daughters through the words of Scripture.)

Today the first chapter I read was Genesis 16. In short…

• No children from Sarai
• Sarai tells Abram to go into her servant, Hagar
• Abram listens to Sarai
• Hagar conceives and then looks with contempt on Sarai
• Sarai complains to Abram, who tells Sarai “do to her as you please”
• Sarai deals harshly with Hagar
• Hagar flees
• God meets Hagar and tells her to go back and submit to Sarai
• Hagar bears a son, Ishmael 

Sound familiar?

Where else have I read about a deceived woman giving her husband something that she never should have given him, and the husband tragically listening to the ill counsel of his wife?

Ah, Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 3 it was fruit. In Genesis 16 it was a woman.

Both were given to the man by the woman. Adam listens to Eve. Abram listens to Sarai.

Like father, like son.

When God pronounces a curse on Adam, he says, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife…” (Genesis 3:17)

After Sarai tells Abram to take Hagar as his wife and bear children by her, we read, “And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.” (Genesis 16:2)

O women! Eve! Sarai! Theresa! How you desire to rule over your husband! And look where it leads: Death. Contempt. Bitterness.

Like mother, like daughter.

Could the “curse” on the woman in Genesis 3 actually be a blessing?
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

What if Abram would have ruled over his wife?

“Sarai, I will not go in to Hagar. We must trust the promises of God. The Lord is faithful. And the Lord does not require this wickedness to keep his promise that our very own son shall be our heir.”

I guess we’ll never know the outcome of Abram ruling over Sarai in this situation. He didn’t do it. He listened to the voice of his wife.

But I’m grateful to God for Abram and Sarai and Hagar and Ishmael and the mess created by disobedience.

It makes me not want to be “a voice” to Will so much.

And I makes me want to submit to Will’s leadership, because as a daughter of Eve and Sarai, I am easily deceived. And God has, in a sense, provided some protection in the form of husbands. 

Come, women, let us walk in the light of the Lord, and trust his hand of protection that often times looks like Will’s hand… or Dan’s hand or John’s hand or Haden’s hand or Caleb’s hand or Bill’s hand or Steven’s hand or Roger’s hand or Rick’s hand or Ian’s hand…