Blessed are all who take refuge in him. | Psalm 2.12b
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.” | Psalm 16.1–2
Last Sunday, we said that the Psalmist reframes the major conflict of this world from Us vs. Them to People vs. God; the major issue being that we are on the side of people. The purpose of God’s redemptive plan is to bring us back to His side, by proving His glory and by making it possible for us, His enemies, to benefit from His victory. Our response is to take refuge in Him: to see our need for Him and to develop dependence.
This week we talked about trust; that what keeps us in a place of refuge is a developed and developing trust in God. We experience His goodness when we submit to Him and His ways. One of the blessings of belonging to God is having a cheat sheet to living this life; we are given laws and commands that put us in line with the creation order without us having to figure it out. Following God is its own blessing, protecting us from a great deal of pain that we would otherwise fall into.
All of this sounds really great in theory, the challenge is in the application. While God’s Way is always right, it is not always easy. There are times when, unable to see over the next horizon, we doubt that God’s way is best. We wonder if God cares for us and we choose to take things into our own hands. This is not an occasional thing. Every day were are faced with numerous situations where we can continue to find our refuge in God OR we can solve things from our own practical outlook on the world.
It isn’t usually as sinister as seeing our way and God’s way laid out as two roads diverging in the woods, choosing our path over His. More often, we convince ourselves that we are on God’s path, but that He needs our help to make things happen the way they should. We assume that God would want us to ambitiously pursue making His kingdom come, even if this means doing things our way. Pretty soon we find that we are no longer asking, what would be most faithful? in any given situation, but instead, what will work best? It is at that moment that you know you have chosen the Hagar Option.
The story of Hagar begins in Genesis 15 as God promises a family line to the childless Abraham. When Abraham points out the issue of children (as if God hadn’t noticed), God says to him:
And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. | 4-6
God promises to give Abraham a son and Abraham believed and trusted Him. Then we move into Genesis 16 and the story goes sideways. The son has not come and Sarah, who has not been able to get pregnant, offers her Egyptian servant (Hagar) to Abraham to produce an heir. In one sense, this seems rational: we live in a broken world in which we have to work in broken means to produce God’s good. The Hagar Option seems like a justifiable step when you know where God is going and you want to play your part in helping move things along. The problem is, God is not just trying to get something done, He is doing it in a specific way. He could have, at any moment, made Sarah able to have a child. God promised He would, at some point! Abraham and Sarah simply had to trust that God will follow through on His promise.
We aren’t always given such specific promises, but God has made it clear that practicing His means of grace (prayer, Bible-reading, and gathering together with the church) will produce what He plans to accomplish. Living in line with Biblical imperatives and moral order are the tools that He has given to both keep us from causing more sinful destruction, but also to be His ambassadors of reconciliation in this life.
Doing the simple (yet difficult) work of trusting God, loving others, hating sin, and producing God’s good through obedience, is what it means to be a Christian. Sometimes, this means having to put up with things we wish were different, being patient when you want God to work faster, and continuing to do what is right when you aren’t feeling it. That is what faith is:
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. | Hebrews 11:1
The alternative, the Hagar Option, not only fails to accomplish what we think it will (Ishmael was not Israel’s line), but it also creates all sorts of additional problems we never saw coming. The Hagar Option created a jealousy for Sarah, great pain to Hagar, an inferiority complex in Ishmael, and another nation who ends up at war with Israel. Our choices in life don’t offer such a clear perspective; we often don’t know where our choices will lead. This is an even greater reason to trust and find refuge in a good God who as at work in His world. His way has already considered all of the collateral damage and unseen consequences. His means not only bring us to His intended end, but they do so in a way that does not destroy along the way.
Find your refuge in God, allowing His good means to bring you to His good end.