the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”
THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
What God cares about is not exactly our actions. What he cares about is that we should be creatures of a certain kind or quality—the kind of creatures He intended us to be—creatures related to Himself in a certain way. I do not add “and related to one another in a certain way,” because that is included: if you are right with Him you will inevitably be right with all your fellow-creatures, just as if all the spokes of a wheel are fitted rightly into the hub and the rim they are bound to be in the right positions to one another. And as long as a man is thinking of God as an examiner who has set him a sort of paper to do, or as the opposite party in a sort of bargain—as long as he is thinking of claims and counter-claims between himself and God—he is not yet in the right relation to Him. He is misunderstanding what he is and what God is. And he cannot get into the right relation until he has discovered the fact of our bankruptcy.
—from Mere Christianity
For reflection
Genesis 15:1–21
16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar,
and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.
He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.
Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!”
But Abram said to Sarai, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.
7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.
And he said, “Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.”
The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.”
The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.”
And the angel of the LORD said to her,
“Now you have conceived and shall bear a son;
you shall call him Ishmael,[43 (#ulink_478ebc2e-6c11-5f1e-8ff5-62dfb3384c61)]
for the LORD has given heed to your affliction.
He shall be a wild ass of a man,
with his hand against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him;
and he shall live at odds with all his kin.”
So she named the LORD who spoke to her, “You are El-roi”;[44 (#ulink_8df7eba2-d301-51e0-a18c-47e36ac1d531)] for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”[45 (#ulink_aba597fd-6567-5c92-925c-7cabc4e195d9)]
Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi;[46 (#ulink_5a5c3133-6d18-58d1-8f24-979624e28a2f)] it lies between Kadesh and Bered.
15 Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him[47 (#ulink_66d63614-1460-5553-a040-be95e9bbd9c6)] Ishmael.
17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; [48 (#ulink_36a2349f-1db6-5d98-892e-3cb3400246c3)] walk before me, and be blameless.
And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.”
Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,
“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
No longer shall your name be Abram,[49 (#ulink_67630a13-c629-5060-8231-72f8e72661fb)] but your name shall be Abraham;[50 (#ulink_bfc440cb-c25f-5a85-85ac-20281bbd6dba)] for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations.
I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.
I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring[51 (#ulink_d3bae270-8c72-5c9a-969c-211ad2f448d8)] after you.
And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”
9 God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring.
Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.
Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
15 God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
And Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!”
God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac.[52 (#ulink_3fed4aad-54ab-5305-aab4-2e42b16cd04e)] I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.”
And when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
