The Perplexing Tale of Ishmael

*Disclaimer: The following thoughts are all just that - - thoughts. No in-depth study or commentary cross-checking has been done. This entry will more likely lead to more questions than answers, but hopefully also to more praise.



Background is assumed here – read Genesis 16 for more. (Cliff’s notes: Sarai tries to move God’s promise of a son forward through their servant, Hagar. The resulting son is Ishmael. ) Chapter 21 is where my musings have centered. This is where God’s chosen son for Abraham and Sarah enters the picture – Isaac.


At Isaac’s weaning, Abraham threw a party. At the party, Sarah saw Ishmael laugh (this particular laughter might be in mockery, says the ESV notes). In anger, she has Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. Ishmael is around 15 years old and is banished from his father’s house only left with his mother and a skin of water between them – in the desert. At this point of the story, it grabs my attention that Ishmael has not been named once. “Son of Hagar.” “Son of this slave woman.” “The boy.” “The child.” Never “Ishmael,” as opposed to Isaac, who is distinctly called by name throughout the passage.


Why is he not named?


I honestly don’t know, but it seems to be an intentional omission in the text.


My wonderings have led me to praise. It seems to me that when we become sons and daughters of God’s promises in Christ (or recipients of His electing love), our identities are cemented. We are God’s…intimately…by name. Ishmael was not the son of the promise. But before we get bent out of shape about ‘fairness’ of God’s love, look at the next interesting nuance in the passage.


Not only is Ishmael banished by his father (for laughing!!) but when the water runs out and life is fading, his mother abandons him. We know she is deeply saddened to watch her son die, but think of the self-absorption to walk away from a dying son—banished, now abandoned. Then look at the narration’s wonderful twist in the text:


Hagar: “'Let me not look on the death of the child.' And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy.” (emphasis added)


The narration clearly calls out her voice, but says God heard the boy’s voice. God’s common grace draws Him near to the brokenhearted in mercy—even though he was not the son of the glorious promise. His mercy extends to the ends of the earth!


For me, personally, I am speechlessly thankful, and not thankful enough, all at the same time, that I am “named” by God. It is with absolute humility that I say this, because it is Jesus’ doing. I am named as a son only because He was named with my curse. I will never be ultimately banished and abandoned to the wilderness because He was abandoned and banished in my place. And just as God ultimately provided an oasis of water in the desert for Ishmael, God has also provided a Living Fountain of water for me in the person of Jesus Christ.

Pug Petitions

I actually laid hands on our pug for prayer two nights ago. Our eight year old pug has a myriad of issues, the most recent apparently being nocturnal insomnia (**disclaimer-not an actual vet approved diagnosis). This issue leads to click-clacking doggie paws on wood floors all through the night, whining at our bedroom door, and consequently – my own resulting sleep deprivation.



Now that we are into about week four of this, I am wearing down. A temporary solution has been for me to sleep on the couch. Proximity to a human seems to calm him down to a degree. But as this removes me from my marriage bed, it is not a good long-term solution.


So at 2:something in the morning, I found myself laying hands on my pug and audibly praying to God about the situation.


It seemed a little ridiculous and strange to me, but I don’t think it should. It has been a nagging, trying issue for weeks and is occupying a decent amount of life real-estate for me. Maybe I should have prayed 3 weeks ago—maybe that should be the normal response. Paul E. Miller, in A Praying Life, talks about the overwhelming volume of things we don’t talk to God about because we have the invisible norms of what God wants to (and doesn’t want to) hear about. Our pug’s sleeping patterns defaults to the ‘don’t bother Him with it’ category. And it shouldn’t. It is an issue that is causing me anger, frustration, fatigue, and some general craziness. Looking at this list, I’m pretty convinced I need the power of God warmly welcomed in the situation.


Thanks, Paul Miller, for your good words.


Thanks, Jesus, even more for your words through Peter: “…casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (ESV)


By the way, last night was more of the same with the pug situation.


While I am praying that the situation will go away, maybe the whole design was to get me to pray…

Hello, Again

I was re-introduced to Jesus this holiday season. I’d like to say that it was at a reflective advent service, or in a deep conversation with Christy, but I met Him again in the movie theater. As we milled around the lobby, I kept seeing posters for movies I wanted to see. Little Fockers. True Grit. The Fighter. But the company I was with wanted to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader.


Crap.


I know, C. S. Lewis is a master, but I’ve not been a huge fan of the Narnia films. But we bought tickets and I settled in to enjoy it as much as I could.


As the movie went along, I found myself pulled into the fairly sophisticated portrayal of sin and temptation, but it was in the closing moments that I was sucker-punched with the person of Jesus. As Aslan (the Christ-figure) and company stand on a shore, he bellows a great roar to push back the sea—a commanding roar that accurately portrayed power, authority, and intensity. I remember chills going down my spine in the theater as the real Jesus leapt into my mind. But the sucker punch came moments later when Lucy timidly but confidently approaches Aslan, reaches her small arms up and embraces as much as she can of Aslan’s mane, pressing herself into him. The screen cut to a close-up of the face of Aslan where CGI magically rendered an expression of absolute tenderness, warmth, care, and love.


Tears welled up in my eyes as at that moment, as for me, the person of Christ, not Aslan, was front and center in my mind. It was as if his image had been superimposed on the screen. I hadn’t personally been with that Jesus for a long time.

God’s character and personality is vast and diverse. I find that I get stuck in certain particular aspects of Him sometimes, zoning in on a few particular attributes to the exclusion of others. For me, the last few years have been tipping the scales on the end of His holiness, power, majesty, wrath, justice, and transcendence. Indeed, these are marvelous aspects of His character. It has been rich at times while through these attributes He has exposed my sin for what it is, become larger in my vision, and has become the majestic King that He ought. But when this scene of His tenderness found its way into the film, my heart became acutely aware that I had not felt personally loved and embraced by my Father for a long time. How my soul needed (and needs) it.


The subsequent weeks have been wonderfully real and intimate with my Father. I talk to Him again like a beloved child, still aware that He is majestic beyond comprehension, but I am reminded that, through Jesus, I have confident assurance that I can be with my Father with no fear. No trepidation. No condemnation. His embrace is real…almost tangible in this sweet time.


Siblings, I hope your Father is to you both majesty and intimacy personified. Embrace the whole of God, not just a part. Find your soul both overwhelmed by Him and warmed by Him.


“Make no mistake. Aslan is on the move.” – Mr. Beaver, The Chronicles of Narnia

An Honest Question

Seriously, no guilt undertones here at all.

Would Jesus watch TV if he were to walk here today?

Questions of cultural relevance, community ideals, use of 'down time,' quality of entertainment...all sorts of things make me wonder about the answer to this question. I honestly have no clue.

Interesting Thoughts from Challies.com

http://www.challies.com/reading-classics-together/the-next-charles-spurgeon#more

Hebrew Anyone?

I found a really great resource for an introduction to learning Biblical Hebrew:

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/7_home.html

Any takers to learn with me?

Jesus Still Has a Body

Our pastor reminded us of this fact on Sunday night. It's a lovely thought to me and is helpful in many ways. Specifically for me, it makes prayer easier. I think prayer is intensely difficult...to not feel like I'm 'thinking out loud' or 'talking to myself' but actually engaging with the Living God of all creation. Jesus having a body simply puts real ears and intercession to my prayer efforts. It also reminds me of a living hope. There are so many dark and heavy things in this world, more specifically, our lives. Jesus having a body, for some reason, reminds me of a living, active, tangible hope. Jesus is the hope for broken government. Jesus is the hope for limping churches. Jesus is the hope for depression. Jesus is the hope for...

Basement Walls

Crash Helmets

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk (New York, 1982), pages 52-53.

Crappy Start to the Workday

So I have about a 10-minute walk to work which is usually very enjoyable, especially on crisp, sunny mornings such as this one. I was most of the way to work when I noticed a considerable amount of birdcrap on the sidewalk. This surprised me a bit because there were no shrubs or low, full trees around. You know the kind; the ones that you park under unwittingly when you go shopping, only to smack yourself in the forehead three hours later as you discover your car has a new paint job called 'blackberry marble.'
So I began pondering why this might be. No fence, no bird feeder, no bushes, no low trees. These things perplex simple minds. I began to be bothered enough to investigate further. As I lifted my eyes heavenward on this glorious morning, an interesting thing occurred. Time seemed to decelerate as if in a matrix-like state. First my eyes focused on the high branches, 50-60 feet up in the air. Still leafless from the winter, branches sparse as they thin toward the top, slightly waving in the morning's light breeze. Then my eyes focused 20 feet lower. Descending toward me was a slightly wavering bit of matter, unrecognized at first. Then the matrix-time process began occurring in my brain. "Move," it said. Then it said, louder and more urgent this time, "move quickly." The brain-nerve-motor connections screamed with indecisiveness as I tried to process everything faster than gravity could act. As motor skills clicked in and cognition finally came upon me, I felt the distinct ping of something smacking me directly in the forehead. Still trying to reconcile this less-than-a-second sequence, I instinctively reached my hand up to my forehead where I felt for (what? what was I feeling for?) what I hoped would be nothing. It was probably one of those spring buds from the tree that had sprung loose as new growth pushed through. So in my head, I was feeling for nothing. But when I brought my hand down, there was a brown and white smear, notifying me that it was not, in fact, a bud that had struck me in the forehead. I looked back up, now for a different reason than before. I looked up to internally curse the masterful pooper with impeccable aim. There he sat...perched as if nothing had happened, though in my heart-I knew he was laughing, sneering really. I had not caught him before in my first quick glance up, but he was now most assuredly there, confirming that the sidewalk art was his doing--the whole reason I had slowed in the first place.

Yep, right in the forehead.