Abram reached his old age as a man of wealth, but he was a nomad and childless. He had many material goods but no land to call his own and no children. He felt that his life was a failure in regard to those two most important aspects. He received a promise from God that he would have his own land and be the father of a great nation. Abraham believed in the Word of God and set out on his journey to the promised land. He abandoned everything he knew and his extended family, trusting only in God. He journeyed out without a map or plan or even a final destination. Thus, he is called the father of faith. He had great success along the way to the promised land.
Yet still no children. This produces feelings of despair and disgrace in him and in his wife Sarai and even feeling of being abandoned or cursed by God. They begin to think and plan on their own – without God, separate from the Word of God. I remember one of the catechists in Lima talking about St Teresa of Avila’s writings about the “crazy person in our house” – that imagination or thinking inside us that takes us away from God’s plan. Abraham and Sarai’s plan was just that. They decide that he should have a child through a concubine, Sarai’s maid. Logically and rationally, it is a good plan. But Hagar’s pregnancy only produces more despair, disdain and violence in the relationship between Sarai, Abraham, and Hagar and even with others.
Isaac, son of Abram and Sarai, the child of the promise, is eventually born according to God’s plan and timing.
It is easy of us to listen to the “crazy person in our house” and justify our decisions and actions that lead us down a road that is far from God’s intentions and plans. Despair is at the center of many of our violent and crazy actions. Abraham was a man of deep faith. But he had to grow into an even deeper confidence in God’s Word and in the action of God his life. Human logic, despair and violence produce Ishmael, a life at best parallel to God’s plan and often far off on a different tangent, while faith and hope produce Isaac, a life that is centered on God’s plan.
Abraham, the father of faith, eventually learned patience, faith and hope through all the difficult times in his life. Let’s take some time today to look at the “crazy person inside us” who tries to justify and rationalize our plans and actions that take us far from God’s plan of salvation for all.
This one shall be a wild ass of a man,
his hand against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him;
In opposition to all his kin
shall he encamp.
Image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFqhhRleYIA