DISCLAIMER: All marriage relationships are different. Therefore, it is not my intention to generalize any one person's circumstances. My goal here is to explore common issues and concepts that affect many marriages. By looking at biblical characters with similar circumstances I try to draw parallels to our own experience and find principles that we can apply to our own lives. I pray that you are enriched. If you are currently experiencing a divorce or separation I pray for God's richest manifestations of healing and restoration over you and your family. God bless.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife,
had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave 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. So after Abram had been living
in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her
to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar,
and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her
mistress. 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.” “Your slave is
in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai
mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. The
angel of the Lord found Hagar near
a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And
he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you
going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress
and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase
your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” (Gen.
16:1-10 NIV)
Now I already know what you're
thinking, “Abram and Hagar weren't really married! God never blessed that
relationship.” While I understand and
sympathize with the rationale, I think that the issue is a bit more complex
than we like to make it. So just indulge
me here, and please note that the text actually says that Sarai gave Hagar “to her
husband to be his wife” (Gen. 16:3 NIV).
There was no other social construct to describe such a relationship of
long-term domestic partnership that included conceiving, bearing, and rearing
children. Albeit misdirected and
ill-advised, it was indeed a marital relationship.
I actually agree with you. This whole thing with Abram and Hagar was
never God's plan. And this thing was
doomed to fail from the beginning.
However, let's not overlook the fact that polygamy was the norm in that
time and society. But we also have to
consider what it was that they were trying to accomplish. This was not a simplistic attempt to keep in
step with societal norms. This was a
ploy in the mind of his wife (Sarai) to help bring about God's will according
by their own means. And for that reason
it was doomed before it even got started.
But let's face it, a lot of
marriages start just like Abram and Hagar's did. We overlooked a glaring flaw or tried to
ignore a major red flag. You knew he had major control issues. You knew she was self-centered and materialistic. Yet, you moved in together anyway reasoning that "everybody test drives before they buy." And after the
wedding, red flags turn into real problems.
In other words, what was easy to overlook in the dating stage is not
so easy to ignore after the vows because marriage has brought us too close to
really hide character flaws and inconsistencies. Even some of the things that were thought to
be cute are suddenly annoying as time goes by, so surely the weak points of
character will begin to weigh on the relationship.
Then, there were those parents and
mentors who tried to counsel us against getting married. They said we're too young, we should wait, we
should get counseling, we should finish school first, we should get a job and
save some money, but we didn't listen to counsel because we knew we were in
love and we could make it work. Boy were
we in for a rude awakening? We had no
idea that it would be this hard. It's
amazing how problems don't just go away if you "just drop the issue." They just fester, spoil, and get worse and
worse.
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