Under promising and Over Delivering

Genesis 21

 14 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and ^asent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of ^bBeer-sheba.

 15 And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.

 16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.

 17 And God heard the voice of the lad; and the ^aangel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.

 18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great ^anation.

 19 And God ^aopened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

 20 And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an ^aarcher.

 21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a ^awife out of the land of ^bEgypt.

 So, even though this is more or less talking about Abraham and the promised blessing that his seed shall be as numerous as the sands of the sea, there is a lesson here. 

First of all, this is talking about Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Ishmael, is not going to be a part of the line that the Abrahamic covenant is a part of, but because he is a Abraham's son, he will live and he will be a part or grow into a mighty nation. And he did. The Lord keeps his promises even in the unlikely way.

Second, for us, if there ever is a blessing that is promised to us, you can bet that Heavenly Father will keep it. Not only that, but he will go above and beyond what we can ever expect. Sometimes he asks for things in return. My thinking at this time, is that he was asking obedience and patience. I mean, if He told you some amazing blessings were going to come your way, wouldn't you want them as soon as possible. But we have no record of Abraham complaining and pestering God about it. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But seeing Abraham's track record, I will go ahead and give my opinion that he was patient.