Today I am in Genesis chapter 12. The story is about Abraham heading into Egypt to get some food because of a famine. He has all of his possessions with him, including his wife Sarai. Sarai was beautiful, the Bible says. So beautiful that Abraham thought that Pharaoh kill him just to have her! Now, THAT is some beautifulness right there. She must have been obviously good looking. These leads me to these thoughts...
I wonder what "beautiful" looked like back then. I think maybe it would fallen under the category that we have in our culture of "natural beauty" of some sort anyways, or maybe not at all. I also think that it is so interesting that beauty has been acknowledged for so, so long. I think that speaks to the fact that beauty itself was created by God. Beauty is not something that comes from us. Not from our fashion, makeup, surgeries, salon visits, ANYTHING. (Some of you just rolled your eyes, but seriously. Just think about that for a minute.) This lady, Sarai was so stunning that her husband thought that when they stepped foot into this new country that surely word of how stunningly beautiful she was would reach the Pharaoh and Pharaoh would want her so bad that he would kill Abraham. Abraham was just excepting this as absolute FACT! She was BEAUTIFUL. And do you think that Sarai had purchased her beauty from any of the above sources that I named? What her make up simply that awesome? Or don't you think that it is safe to assume that she just WAS beautiful? A gift from her Creator. She was made beautiful enough to make her hubs fear for his wife to be stolen and himself to be killed off. God creates beauty, and He had created it, clearly, in Sarai.
So, Abraham decides that if he poses as Sarai's BROTHER that everything would be cool. He might even get some free swag bag out of the deal...
"14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had."
Genesis 12:14-20
So, Abraham lies to the Pharaoh in Egypt which keeps Abraham safe, sends his wife into the palace to become another man's wife, so the Lord punishes Pharaoh because of all of this.
When I first read this, I was a bit confused. My inner "right and wrong" monitor was telling me that there is something not quite right about all of this. Abraham lied, should he not be punished for that? And he put his wife through some stuff too, I mean, she seemed at first to me to be "used" by Abraham. But then I asked the Lord to show me what I should learn from this story. And I felt Him saying for me to look up into the first part of this chapter...
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”[b]
Genesis 12: 2-3
I believe that the "moral to the story" so to speak is that God took care of Abraham. He promised that He would just 12 verses earlier, and God does not break His promises.
So,what am I to learn about being a woman from this story? Sarai trusted her husband Abraham to make that tough, and scary decision to even go into Egypt, and then to lie about her being his wife. She trusted him, said nothing, (that we can see anyways) showed her husband that she was going to be by his side, even if that meant that she would not LITERALLY be for awhile. Sarai didn't know that the lie would work, or that even SHE would not be killed herself! But she let her husband be the leader of her home, like God intended, and in the end, the Lord took care of them both. Man, I would have had a HARD time going along with THAT plan. Hats off to you Sarai.
What does this mean for me as a woman? in my own story? This just reminds me to honor the position that the Lord has put my husband in, in the big things as well as the small. How many of our husbands have outlandish plans and schemes like Abraham? Um, all of them do! If you have yet to experience one, you just have not been married long enough, don't worry, it will come. And when it does come, know that the Lord has placed your husband over you, as the leader of your home. That is simply the structure that God has created. And it is your awesome chance as a woman to let your husband HAVE that role. He has it, but we do not always, as wives, honor it, or even allow it.
I pray for my husband, that he will be blessed by the Lord just like Abraham, and I believe that he will be. And there may be times when I am asked, as his wife, to trust in what my husband believes to be the right thing to do, and what I learned from Sarai today is that it is my amazing responsibility to support his decision.
As a believer in Christ, I am different than what the world perceives a woman to be. And this is one very obviously different belief that sets me apart as a believer in my God. A different kind of woman.
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