Now Sarai (Princess), Abram’s (Exalted Father) wife, had not borne.  She had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar (Flight).  So Princess said to Exalted Father, “Look, the LORD has prevented me from bearing.  Please go in to my maid.  Perhaps I will be built from her.” 

Exalted Father listened to the voice of Princess.  After Exalted Father dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan, Exalted Father’s wife, Princess, took Flight the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Exalted Father as his wife. 

He went in to Flight, and she conceived.  When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress [Princess] was despised in her sight.  

Princess said to Exalted Father, “May the wrong done me be upon you.  I gave my maid into your bosom.  But when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight.  May the LORD judge between me and you.” 

But Exalted Father said to Princess, “Look, your maid is in your hand.  Do to her what is good in your eyes.”  So Princess treated her harshly, and she [Flight] fled suddenly from her presence. Genesis 16:1-6

Control.  It didn’t work out so well.

Princess has not borne a child.  A catastrophe.  All believed including Princess that it is her fault.  She is mocked by her own name, “Princess.”  The mocking is intensified by her husband’s name, “Exalted Father.”

Princess has a purpose, to produce princes and princesses with her husband, Exalted Father.  That is how she is to be built.

Princess and Exalted Father have spent their prime years, their prime childbearing years, living in the future hope and promise of their names.  This had started as their identity.

But the passage of time had built a thick tarnish over the shine.  Now the expectancy of their names is too painful, and better forgotten.

But not completely forgotten.

The hope had been renewed.  Divine encounters with new hope, new promise, that Exalted Father really would become his name.  But it has been 10 years since these latest promises, and still, nothing.

What to do?  If fertility has not passed by now, life itself will soon enough.  Waiting is simply no longer an option.

There is one possibility.  Surrogacy.  There is a maid under her control.  Under her ownership.  Princess could claim as her own a child borne to her maid,.  True, all would know the biology.  But the relationship, the status, the result, would be close enough.  At last, Princess would be built.  You can’t control what you can’t control.  But you can control what you can control.  So control that!

This surrogate has her own identity engraved by her name:  “Flight.”  Princess needs to be built on permanent foundations.  Flight is not grounded.  Flight is transitory.  Flight is an excellent option.  Use her, and then dispose of her.  Send her on her way.  She was never here for permanence, anyway.

It will help the illusion.  For only a few months, less than a year, Flight’s presence will be an annoying reminder of the counterfeit nature of the plan.  But then she will be gone.  And it will just be Exalted Father, Princess, and “their” child.  Flight’s disappearance will make the illusion easy enough for all to believe, even the participants.  And in time, the details of this baby’s origin will fade.  Princess will have a son.  And Princess will be built.

It is a perfect plan.  It must be executed, without delay.

Exalted Father will have to be brought in to the plan.  Princess starts by blame shifting.  “The LORD has prevented me from bearing.”  What can she do?  It is out of her hands.  She must invoke another option.  Exalted Father’s own yearning, so far unfulfilled, is fallow ground to plant the idea.  He will now have permission for this illicit affair.  Exalted Father listens, and participates.

The plan works.  But then it doesn’t.  Princess thought she could control Flight.  But Flight has a new script of her own.  Flight despises Princess.  The haunting mockery of the names “Exalted Father” and “Princess” has returned, louder this time.  Flight was supposed to be possessed by Princess, controlled by Princess, in the hand of Princess.  But this being despised is too much.  It upends the relationship.  Flight has gained superiority over Princess.  Flight has in one night done what Princess could not do in all these years.  This is too much to bear.

How to regain control?  To regain the upper hand?

Blame again.  This time, it is Exalted Father’s fault.  “May the LORD judge between me and you,” Princess declares, defending herself.

Exalted Father wants neither to share in responsibility, nor abide Princess’s distress.  Fix it, he tells her.  You have the power.  Flight is in your hand.  Do what is right in your own eyes.  She does.  Princess exercises control again.

Princess need not send Flight away directly.  Princess can be more subtle.  Just make life miserable enough that Flight will flee on her own.  Then Princess can plausibly deny responsibility for Flight’s flight, and Princess will have someone else to blame again, Flight herself.  This handmaid taken into slavery, and used for Princess’s own purposes, is now treated with unbearable ignominy to the point where Flight really has no other option but to flee. 

This entire saga is one sad effort at control.  But oh so common and familiar.  I have a persisting instinct to gain control over my circumstances.  To achieve my own comfort, my own equilibrium.

I am not alone.  We humans want to control the weather, the economy, traffic, education, health, politics, and everyone else’s behavior.

Even altruistic motivations can invoke self-reliance to get out there and fix what is wrong.

In my own strength.  With my own plan.  Controlling what I think I can control.

Paul wrote in Galatians chapter 4 that Flight and Princess are allegorical.  Flight’s son is the product of the flesh.  Princess’s son is from promise.  One is the result of human effort.  The second, of divine providence.

Control is demonic.  “[I]f you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.  This “wisdom” is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.”  James 3:14-16.

It is hard to wait.  The longer the waiting, the greater the urge to seize control.

God waits.  He is patient.  He long endures my sin and immaturity.  My impetuousness.  Whining.  Waiting for that moment where I will calm down long enough for him to speak with a still, small voice.  To say that he really is still in control.  He really is still on the throne.  His promises are true, and he will perform them.  I may not live to see it in this life.  Many have not.  But that does not change that he is faithful to see through to the end that which he has purposed and promised.

To forsake control.  To abide in a posture of waiting.  This is not my instinct.  But it is godly maturity.  And it yields peace.  James continues, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.  The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”  James 3:17-18.

But I have stilled and quieted my soul.
Like a weaned child with his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.  Psalm 131:2.

A nursing child controls his environment by crying to be fed.  A weaned child gives up control, rests, and trusts.

In what areas am I meddling with God’s plan and timing, trying to seize control and accomplish by my flesh what he promised by his Spirit?