Back to Abram, Sarah, and Hagar....the problem was escalated when Hagar became pregnant. After she did, Hagar despised Sarah so much, because it seemed like God was always blessing her boss. But God really was showing no favoritism here....He was, in fact, very neutral about the whole situation until the end.

While the son born to Hagar was basically adopted by Sarah, Sarah sinned in that she did not wait for God's promise. She was impatient, and refused to hear the word of the Lord. Now we know that God is not slow in fulfilling His promises, as 2 Peter 3:9 tells us. But his promises may take a lifetime...as is demonstrated by the life of Moses, Abraham, and Sarah. And many of the elder Christians today can also testify of this. Because God always upholds His divine promises to us, it is up to us to wait...and wait, and wait...
We learn a couple of lessons in this story. First of all, we learn that God's promises to us are surely to come, and that He, in fact, is the only one, besides Jesus to fulfill all his promises. We can't even claim to fulfill all our promises...whether to God, or to ourselves, or to our fellow man. This is why the Lord tells us never to make a vow, or an oath...because as soon as we do, we break them.

In our world today, we have adopted a promise into our marriage vows that says "I do" But how many times during our marriages, do we actually uphold the "I do's". To a Christian, this verse in the marriage vow should never be spoken. But once it is, it should never be broken. It is actually one way that the enemy has tricked us into falling. It's enough that we love one another at the moment...but true love is fleeting and it's up to us to catch it. To a Christian, every time that we sin, we break the commandment of Jesus written in John 13:34, Ephesians 5:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, Hebrews 13:1, James 2:8, 1 1 John 2:8, 3:11, 4:20-21.

Of course, we should realize that this goes outside the bond of marriage...this affects our daily walk with Christ. Whether we like it or not....once we profess with our hearts that Jesus is Lord of our lives. a love so strong, and so pure should come out of us, that we need to be totally taken over by love...
Because the Son of God, who is also the son of nan, is love to the first, second, and third degree. He is a consuming fire that is meant to cut to the very heart of man. The only way that love will never find our hearts is if we are the sons of satan.
Of course, no true Christian will ever want to be faced with that truth. But if we truly don't show the fruits of the spirit, which according to Galatians 5:22 fall into all of these following categories: love, peace, joy, long suffering (which is patience; a whole lot of patience), gentleness, goodness, and faith, meekness, and temperance. According to Paul, "if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. It's impossible to have just one of the fruits and think we are ok...we should have, and need to have, all the fruits in order to function...if we don't, we need a major tune up. If at anytime any of the aforementioned are absent from our lives, personalities, and behaviors, then we do not represent Christ at all. If we do not represent Christ at all, then Christ is truly absent from our lives. Such was the case with Abram, Sarah, and even Hagar. At the very start everything was going along fine, but halfway into it, the three started messing up, but bad..they forgot God's promises, they were lacking in faith, and certainly Abraham was lacking in the spiritual authority in which he was supposed to walk. (Remember, God chose Abraham to be the father of many nations).

How many of us can identify with each of these biblical personalities? We all have a bit of Abraham, Sarah, and even Hagar in us. Basically in each of their lives, the three people left God out of the equation...and when we, as Christians, leave God out of the equation, then all hell is surely going to break loose.

Yet, as we have been shown, even in the roughest and ugliest of situations, God is, and always will be, the voice of sweetness, tenderness, lovingkindness, and goodwill towards all men, not just a select few. For us to have an attitude that God will bless certain people, and not others, is a case of not knowing God. When it comes down to it, God might very well bless our enemies, instead of us. After all, God gives no partiality, He will send down the rain on both the just and the unjust.
Let's remember that the next time that we have a total disagreement with others, especially those in the body of Christ. Because when it comes down to it, we may have it totally wrong.

It's the voice of God that leads us back into fellowship, servitude, and love. He will never raise his voice, or call out to us in an angry tone when our relationships will, and do, go wrong. But He will always intreat us to do the right thing, because it's only God who gets it right every time!