As beautiful and wonderful as Sarah is described in the Bible, it seemed she had a moment of parental misdirection, thinking she had come up with a way of solving her and Abraham’s childlessness by giving her handmaiden to him to fulfill God’s promise of a son to her husband.
Sarah’s seemingly parental misdirection didn’t just affect one child, but two, and still affects countless lives today. As Genesis 16:1-2 describes her choice, “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an enslaved Egyptian named Hagar; so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai said.”
Sarah’s parenting choice, supported by her husband, set the course for what seemed like a disaster. Genesis 16:5 describes what resulted from her decision.”Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
Her parenting decision may have seemed like a massive error in judgment. She may have possibly felt that the baby born to her handmaiden, Ishmael, was a mistake, but we know that God had a purpose and plan for not only her promised son, Isaac, who would come along later through Sarah, but also his life.
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