Genesis 16 Ishmael

God told Abram that though he was childless, he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky. His wife Sarai proposed a plan to help God with the matter. Abram would sleep with her servant, Hagar, and bear children through her. Abram went along with her plan. But when Hagar became pregnant, she “despised” Sarai. Sarai told Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering” (v. 5). Then Sarai mistreated Hagar to the point where she fled. The angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar and promised that her descendants would also become too many to count. Her son, Ishmael, would live in conflict with the descendants of his eventual brother, Israel, from that time forward. And so it is to this day. Their descendants became the Israelites and the Arabs. So now, whenever someone tries to force something that really is God’s will, but the wrong way at the wrong time, we sometimes call that “birthing an Ishmael”. Waiting on God is better.