The Unintended Blessing

January 16, 2018 Year B

Genesis 17:17-22

Have you ever been the recipient of an unintended blessing? You plan to do one thing, and without you realizing it, you received another blessing that you never expected.

You go to the restaurant to “pay it forward” and you discover that someone has paid for your meal. You go to help someone in need, and then you discover a check that comes in the mail right when you least expected it.

An unintended blessing is one of the ways that God works for His children. He chooses to bless His children in ways that His children do not expect. As a Christian, you don’t live expecting God to give you everything. Yet at the same time, you realize that God does decide to bless you in your time of need.

That’s what God shows Abraham in this exchange. Abraham wanted God to use his existing son Ishmael to fulfill God’s promise. Instead, God decides to use another son. God would bring another son, Isaac, to bring about His covenant to His people.

It would be difficult because this birth would happen during Abraham’s old age. Yet God would bless that union and birth. Then God says something else unexpected. God will bless Abraham through Ishmael. Abraham would the ancestor of two different families (and eventually three religions).

So just like Abraham, we can expect that God will do the unexpected for us. If I am obedient, God will do the unexpected for me.

Photo by Nathan Thomassin on Unsplash