Abram never intended to oppose God; His plans were so frustratingly unclear that he justified a costly, rash decision.

Abram’s faith had been honed by the stories of his forefathers, and stories like that of Job empowered him to seek God no matter how hard it became. When God said, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you,” Abram did just as He said, though it meant leaving everything and everyone he knew, and journeying without a clear destination. He was convinced God knew all and would provide.

This did not mean he was without questions. In the stillness of night as they traveled through Canaan, he would steal away from the camp, look to the stars, and wrestle with God’s words.

“What did you mean when you said, ‘I will make you into a great nation’? How can this be when I am 75 and my hope for children is dashed?” The irony of God’s words were never lost on Abram, whose name meant “exalted father.” When he and Sarai had first married, their excitement could not be contained; as childless years passed, excitement fell into discouragement, and at times hopelessness, as it became painfully clear they could not conceive. Without sons, they would have no lineage. Without children, their reputation would remain tarnished. Though they moved around enough to avoid prolonged external shame, their internal shame was smothering. They had given up hope by the time God promised “a great nation”; His promise must have been figurative.

Years later, when his nephew Lot parted ways, God’s word seemed far from figurative. “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.”

“What offspring? How, Father?” Abram wanted to believe, but he knew how human bodies work, and what God seemed to imply was impossible. He resolved to trust, but in what, he was unclear. Where God said to go, he went, and whatever promises He spoke, Abram affirmed despite his confusion. “I do not know where the Lord is taking me, nor what He will do, yet I will respond though it seems foolish.

One night, God spoke through a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”

Abram was humbled by the reminder that God knew his mind and heart; he had heard his troubled questions and understood his longing for a child. Yet instead of comforting him, God’s assurance gave him the boldness to call out the incongruousness: “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless; you have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

God’s response left no question to the literal nature of his promise: “This servant will not be your heir; a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” With that, the vision whisked him outside. “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” God paused, allowing Abram to take into the vastness of the universe. “So shall your offspring be.”

Abram could not explain it in words, yet somehow – without details or explanation – he believed God entirely. “Though I cannot explain my God or His plans, I trust Him fully and will serve Him entirely. If he says I will have a son in my old age, then a son I will have.”

What was once a sincere declaration became worn as the years passed. Abram and Sarai had been overjoyed by the Lord’s promise, but as attempt after attempt at child-bearing looked no different than before, it became difficult to remain optimistic. Neither wanted to dismiss God and His Word, but it had been a decade since the promise of “a great nation”, and it was easy to think they had gotten something wrong.

The shame of barrenness had always weighed heavy on Sarai, but the false hope of this promise made it unbearable. As she wept in the dark of night after another unfruitful window, she felt distant from God. “I want to believe you, but this is not working. I have prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and we have tried, and tried, and tried, and though you could easily give us a child, you give nothing… your promises seem empty.”

One night, as Abram suggested they try again, she held him at bay. “I can’t, Abram. I have wrestled with this too long. I am so old, and it is clear now the Lord has kept me from having children. His promise to you must be that: to you. He promised you children, not me.” She took a deep breath, pushing past a deep dread of sharing the only idea that made sense. “If the promise is not going to come through me, it has to come through someone. Go, sleep with my slave Hagar… perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram’s heart sank, and he could not speak, much less think. Something within him doubted this was how God’s promise was intended to occur, but Sarai’s thoughts mirrored his own. Month after month, when she failed to conceive, he could not reconcile God’s clear vow of a biological son with their inability to produce one. Years of this led him to consider alternative plans – Hagar had come to his mind as well – yet he never entertained them for long. He wanted to believe God’s plan would come through Sarai, yet it had been too long, and his desire for a child was too strong to leave to mere hope.

He looked into the eyes of the woman he loved, and knew she could not bear to continue on a path that did not promise a child. Agreeing to Sarai’s plan cut to his core, though he saw no other way; he took Hagar as his wife, slept with her, and shortly after it was clear she had conceived.

What assurance they had that their plan worked barely lasted a week. Hagar, who had always respected and obeyed Sarai, felt blindsided by her and Abram throwing her into marriage and consummation. She knew them as righteous people, and such a plan seemed outside their faith. She had no choice in the matter, though deep down she wondered if this may work in her favor; “I am a slave now, but who do I become if I am the wife of this important man and mother to his lineage?” Once pregnant, this reality consumed her mind, and she began to despise Sarai, who was now an obstacle to her pathway from slavery.

Sarai – heartbroken as she was in giving up motherhood – felt the piercing of Hagar’s looks as though they were daggers. Their once cordial relationship was rife with tension; Sarai had chosen Haggar because she believed her to be a good woman, yet now she felt threatened.

In a rare moment Haggar was away from Abram, Sarai pulled her husband aside, her mind a tangle of emotions and frustrations. “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.”

Abram leaned against a nearby tree, the weight of the accusation sapping his energy. His various desires seemed incongruent and warred within him. His core desire was to honor God, but the path was unmarked, and a decade of efforts had failed. He desired to love his wife, but waiting for God and believing the impossible had become too much; he agreed to her plan, yet now it brought disunity and accusation. Threaded through both was his desire for a son which, in addition to being impossible, had made honoring both God and his wife seem impossible as well.

He breathed in deep. “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.” The words seared. “I just wanted a son. I just wanted to honor God,” he shouted in his mind. “It wasn’t even my plan. Should I have rejected it? But I don’t know how else God’s word becomes true when Sarai is clearly barren.” At some point, he realized Sarai was glaring at him, awaiting any response to make things better. He had no strength to deal with it.

“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.”

Sarai stormed off without a word, angry at her husband for doing nothing, angry at Haggar for becoming the mother she could not, and angry at God for all of it. Her anger took the form of mistreatment toward Haggar, who – realizing her position had never changed and she was powerless – fled the camp into the wilderness.

When news of this reached Abram, he crumbled to the ground. “My God, what are you doing?” In his eighty-five years he had never wept so hard, his tears making mud of the dirt around him. “I spent my life trying to honor you, and you denied me a lineage. I took you at your word when you promised a son, and yet every attempt thereafter brought nothing but pain. And now, when I finally have a child on the way, you take it.” Abram beat the ground. “I don’t know how to serve you in this! I don’t know what you want from me.”

Abram quieted for a response that never came.

God’s silence was, at first, more piercing than the accusations of his wife. He wanted to shout at God, to demand explanation and justice, until he remembered Job. Job knew loss, waiting, and silence, and while Abram had often resonated with his demand that God give an account, he was always convicted by God’s response. Rather than an explanation, God explained Himself; he knew Job would not be able to grasp the supernatural interaction that had led to his loss, but he could grasp what it means to submit to God nonetheless. Perhaps in this silence God was saying the same: “I am God, you are not; now, will you still follow me.”

He could not be sure, though he did have a strong sense around one message in the silence: “wait.” Abram recalled the moment of the promise, when something deep within him knew God spoke true and would remain faithful, though he had given Abram no timeline or blueprint; he truly believed with something beyond his understanding. If the God of that moment is the same today, he remains faithful, and His promise true.

Abram detested the timing, though his forefather Noah had waited decades longer for rain to vindicate his outrageous calling. Perhaps Hagar’s child was still the son and would come back, or perhaps his wife could somehow become a mother; Abram knew nothing, only that His God had spoken, and he would hold to that word.