A PETULANT WISH

    ‘And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live
    before Thee!
    GENESIS xvii. 18.
These words sound very devout, and they have often been used by
Christian parents yearning for the best interests of their children,
and sometimes of their wayward and prodigal children. But consecrated
as they are by that usage, I am afraid that their meaning, as they were
uttered, was nothing so devout and good as that which is often attached
to them.
1. Note the temper in which Abraham speaks here. The very existence of
Ishmael was a memorial of Abraham’s failure in faith and patience. For
he thought that the promised heir was long in coming, and so he thought
that he would help God. For thirteen years the child had been living
beside him, winding a son’s way into a father’s heart, with much in his
character, as was afterwards seen, that would make a frank, daring boy
his old father’s darling. Then all at once comes the divine message,
‘This is not the son of the Covenant; this is not the heir of the
Promise. Sarah shall have a child, and from him shall come the
blessings that have been foretold.’ And what does Abraham do? Fall down
in thankfulness before God? leap up in heart at the conviction that now
at last the long-looked-for fulfilment of the oath of God was
impending? Not he. ‘O that _Ishmael_ might live before Thee. Why cannot
_he_ do? Why may he not be the chosen child, the heir of the Promise?
Take him, O God!’
That is to say, he thinks he knows better than God. He is petulant, he
resists his blessing, he fancies that his own plan is quite as good as
the divine plan. He does not want to draw away his heart from the child
that it has twined round. So he loses the blessing of the revelation
that is being made to him; because he does not bow his will, and accept
God’s way instead of his own. Now, do you not think that that is what
we do? When God sends us Isaac, do we not often say, ‘Take Ishmael; he
is my own making. I have set all my hopes on him. Why should I have to
wrench them all away?’ In our individual lives we want to prescribe to
God, far too often, not only the _ends_, but the _way_ in which we
shall get to the ends; and we think to ourselves, ‘That road of my own
engineering that I have got all staked out, that is the true way for
God’s providence to take.’ And when His path does not coincide with
ours, then we are discontented, and instead of submitting we go with
our pet schemes to Him; and if not in so many words, at least in spirit
and temper, we try to force our way upon God, and when He is speaking
about Isaac insist on pressing Ishmael on His notice.
It is often so in regard to our individual lives; and it is so in
regard to the united action of Christian people very often. A great
deal of what calls itself earnest contending for ‘the faith once
delivered to the saints’ is nothing more nor less than insisting that
methods of men’s devising shall be continued, when God seems to be
substituting for them methods of His own sending; and so fighting about
externals and church polity, and determining that the world has got to
be saved in my own special fashion, and in no other, though God Himself
seems to be suggesting the new thing to me. That is a very frequent
phenomenon in the experience of Christian communities and churches.
Ishmael is so very dear. He is not the child of promise, but he is the
child that we have thought it advisable to help God with. It is hard
for us to part with him.
Dear brethren, sometimes, too, God comes to us in various providences,
and not only reduces into chaos and a heap of confusion our nicely
built-up little houses, but He sometimes comes to us, and lifts us out
of some lower kind of good, which is perfectly satisfactory to us, or
all but perfectly satisfactory, in order to give to us something nobler
and higher. And we resist that too; and do not see why Ishmael should
not serve God’s turn as he has served ours; or think that there is no
need at all for Isaac to come into our lives. God never takes away from
us a lower, unless for the purpose of bestowing upon us a higher
blessing. Therefore not to submit is the foolishest thing that men can
do.
But if that be anything like an account of the temper expressed by this
saying, is it not strange that murmuring against God takes the shape of
praying? Ah! there is a great deal of ‘prayer’ as it calls itself,
which is just moulded upon this petulant word of Abraham’s momentarily
failing faith and submission. How many people think that to pray means
to bring their wishes to God, and try to coax Him to make them His
wishes! Why, half the shallow sceptical talk of this generation about
the worthlessness of prayer goes upon that fundamental fallacy that the
notion of prayer is to dictate terms to God; and that unless a man gets
his wishes answered he has no right to suppose that his prayers are
answered. But it is not so. Prayer is not after the type of ‘O that
Ishmael might live before Thee!’ That is a poor kind of prayer of which
the inmost spirit is resistance to a clear dictate of the divine will;
but the true prayer is, ‘O that I may be willing to take what Thou art
willing, in Thy mercy and love, to send!’
I believe in importunate prayer, but I believe also that a great deal
of what calls itself importunate prayer is nothing more than an
obstinate determination not to be satisfied with what satisfies God. If
a man has been bringing his wishes–and he cannot but have
such–continuously to God, with regard to any outward things, and these
have not been answered, he needs to look very carefully into his own
temper and heart in order to make sure that what seems to be waiting
upon God in importunate petition is not pestering Him with refused
desires. To make a prayer out of my rebellion against His will is
surely the greatest abuse of prayer that can be conceived. And when
Abraham said, ‘O that Ishmael might live before Thee!’ if he said it in
the spirit in which I think he did, he was not praying, but he was
grumbling.
2. And then notice, still further, how such a temper and such a prayer
have the effect of hiding joy and blessing from us.
This was the crisis of Abraham’s whole life. It was the moment at which
his hundred years nearly of patient waiting were about to be rewarded.
The message which he had just received was the most lovely and gracious
word that ever had come to him from the heavens, although many such
words had come. And what does he do with it? Instead of falling down
before God, and letting his whole heart go out in jubilant gratitude,
he has nothing to say but ‘I would rather that Thou didst it in another
way. It is all very well to speak about sending this heir of promise. I
have no pleasure in that, because it means that my Ishmael is to be
passed by and shelved.’ So the proffered joy is turned to ashes, and
Abraham gets no good, for the moment, out of God’s greatest blessing to
him; but all the sky is darkened by mists that come up from his own
heart.
Brethren, if you want to be miserable, perk up your own will against
God’s. If you want to be blessed, acquiesce in all that He does send,
in all that He has sent, and, by anticipation, in all that He will
send. For, depend upon it, the secret of finding sunbeams in everything
is simply letting God have His own way, and making your will the
sounding-board and echo of His. If Abraham had done as he ought to have
done, that would have been the gladdest moment of his life. You and I
can make out of our deepest sorrows the occasions of pure, though it is
quiet, gladness, if only we have learned to say, ‘Not my will, but Thy
will be done.’ That is the talisman that turns everything into gold,
and makes sorrow forget its nature, and almost approximate to solemn
joy.
3. My last word is this: God loves us all too well to listen to such a
prayer.
Abraham’s passionate cry was so much empty wind, and was like a straw
laid across the course of an express train, in so far as its power to
modify the gracious purpose of God already declared was concerned. And
would it not be a miserable thing if we could deflect the solemn,
loving march of the divine Providence by these hot, foolish, purblind
wishes of ours, that see only the nearer end of things, and have no
notion of where their further end may go, or what it may be?
Is it not better that we should fall back upon this thought, though, at
first sight, it seems so to limit the power of petition, ‘We know that
if we ask anything according to His will He heareth us’? There is
nothing that would more wreck our lives than if what some people want
were to be the case–that God should let us have our own way, and give
us serpents because we asked for them and fancied they were eggs; or
let us break our teeth upon bestowed stones because, like whimpering
children crying for the moon, we had asked for them under the delusion
that they were bread.
Leave all that in His hands; and be sure of this, that the true way to
peace, to rest, to gladness, and to wringing the last drop of possible
sweetness out of gifts and losses, disappointments and fruitions, is to
have no will but God’s will enthroned above and in our own wills. If
Abraham had acquiesced and submitted, Ishmael and Isaac would have been
a pair to bless his life, as they stood together over his grave. And if
you and I will leave God to order all our ways, and not try to
interfere with His purposes by our short-sighted dictation, ‘all things
will work together for good to us, because we love God,’ and lovingly
accept His will and His law.

Bible Scriptures

Bible Verses About love – Thessalonians-2 3:5
And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

Bible Verses About love – Song-of-Solomon 7:13
The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates [are] all manner of pleasant [fruits], new and old, [which] I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

Bible Verses About love – John-1 3:17
But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

Bible Scriptures – Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint.

Bible Favorites

Bible Scriptures About flesh – Lamentations 3:4
My flesh and my skin hath he made old: he hath broken my bones.

Bible Scriptures About midst – Daniel 3:11
And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, [that] he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

Bible Scriptures About name – John 17:6
I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

Bible Scriptures About spake – Deuteronomy 2:1
Then we turned, and took our journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea, as the LORD spake unto me: and we compassed mount Seir many days.

Bible Scriptures About death – Judges 1:1
Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?

Bible Scriptures About early – Genesis 19:2
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

Bible Scriptures About altar – Malachi 2:13
And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth [it] with good will at your hand.

Bible Scriptures About generations – Leviticus 7:36
Which the LORD commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them, [by] a statute for ever throughout their generations.

Bible Scriptures About idols – Zecharia 10:2
For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because [there was] no shepherd.

Bible Scriptures About broken – Ezekiel 19:12
But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

Bible Scriptures About foot – Leviticus 13:12
And if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of [him that hath] the plague from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh;

Bible Scriptures About face – Daniel 10:9
Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground.

Bible Scriptures About mountains – Isaiah 17:13
The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but [God] shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

Bible Scriptures About fled – Judges 11:3
Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.

Bible Scriptures About beside – Daniel 11:4
And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.

Bible Scriptures About looked – Ezekiel 10:11
When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went.

Bible Scriptures About wrath – Numbers 25:11
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.

Bible Scriptures About followed – Matthew 8:10
When Jesus heard [it], he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

Bible Scriptures About sin – Deuteronomy 4:32
For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and [ask] from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been [any such thing] as this great thing [is], or hath been heard like it?

Bible Scriptures About die – Genesis 47:19
Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give [us] seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate.

Bible Scriptures About water – Acts 8:39
And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.

Bible Scriptures About fathers – Judges 2:22
That through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein, as their fathers did keep [it], or not.

Bible Scriptures About salvation – John 4:22
Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

Bible Scriptures About healing – Luke 9:11
And the people, when they knew [it], followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.

Bible Scriptures About faith – Timothy-1 6:21
Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace [be] with thee. Amen.

Bible Scriptures About worship – Matthew 15:25
Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

Bible Scriptures About grace – John 1:16
And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Bible Scriptures About husbands – Ezekiel 16:45
Thou [art] thy mother's daughter, that loatheth her husband and her children; and thou [art] the sister of thy sisters, which loathed their husbands and their children: your mother [was] an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.

Bible Scriptures About heaven – Luke 20:4
The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?

Bible Scriptures About fear – Proverbs 1:29
For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

Bible Scriptures About strength – Isaiah 30:2
That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!

Bible Scriptures About baptism – Matthew 3:7
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bible Scriptures About prayer – Psalms 69:13
But as for me, my prayer [is] unto thee, O LORD, [in] an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.

Bible Scriptures About anger – Isaiah 10:25
For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.

Bible Scriptures About peace – Zecharia 6:13
Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.

Bible Scriptures About life – Genesis 18:14
Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.

Bible Scriptures About tongue – Job 33:2
Behold, now I have opened my mouth, my tongue hath spoken in my mouth.

Bible Scriptures About bless – Deuteronomy 30:1
And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call [them] to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,

Bible Scriptures About poor – Isaiah 3:15
What mean ye [that] ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

Bible Scriptures About money – Kings-2 23:35
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give [it] unto Pharaohnechoh.

Bible Scriptures About reproach – Psalms 78:66
And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts: he put them to a perpetual reproach.

Bible Scriptures About begat – Genesis 5:30
And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:

Bible Scriptures About wicked – Jeremiah 23:11
For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.

Bible Scriptures About heavens – Psalms 50:6
And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God [is] judge himself. Selah.

Bible Scriptures About inheritance – Kings-1 21:4
And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.

World English Bible

Bible Verses About prayer – Isaiah 26:16
LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer [when] thy chastening [was] upon them.

Bible Verses About healing – Corinthians-1 12:30
Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?

Bible Verses About forgive – Psalms 25:18
Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.

Bible Verses About dreams – Samuel-1 28:6
And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.

Bible Verses About sadness – Ecclesiastes 7:3
Sorrow [is] better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

Bible Verses About lying – Psalms 109:2
For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.

Bible Verses About wisdom – Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Bible Verses About peace – Ephesians 2:14
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [between us];

Bible Verses About courage – Deuteronomy 3:28
But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see.

Bible Verses About youth – Samuel-1 17:33
And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou [art but] a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.

Bible Verses About desolation – Joel 3:19
Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence [against] the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.

Bible Verses About devoted – Numbers 18:14
Everything devoted in Israel shall be thine.

Bible Verses About brow – Genesis 30:32
I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and [of such] shall be my hire.

Bible Verses About flee – Judges 6:39
And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.

Bible Verses About overturn – Ezekiel 21:27
I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no [more], until he come whose right it is; and I will give it [him].

Bible Verses About conspiracy – Kings-2 15:30
And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.

Bible Verses About reward – Ecclesiastes 9:5
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Bible Verses About prostitute – Leviticus 19:29
Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.

Bible Verses About capernaum – Matthew 4:13
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:

Bible Verses About fortress – Jeremiah 16:19
O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and [things] wherein [there is] no profit.

King James Bible

Bible Verses About mouths – Genesis 44:8
Behold, the money, which we found in our sacks' mouths, we brought again unto thee out of the land of Canaan: how then should we steal out of thy lord's house silver or gold?

Bible Verses About pool – John 5:7
The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

Bible Verses About seed – Ezra 2:59
And these [were] they which went up from Telmelah, Telharsa, Cherub, Addan, [and] Immer: but they could not show their father's house, and their seed, whether they [were] of Israel:

Bible Verses About cold – Proverbs 25:20
[As] he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, [and as] vinegar upon nitre, so [is] he that singeth songs to an heavy heart.

Bible Verses About choice – Isaiah 22:7
And it shall come to pass, [that] thy choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

Bible Verses About space – Acts 20:31
Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Bible Verses About trumpets – Judges 7:22
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, [and] to the border of Abelmeholah, unto Tabbath.

Bible Verses About years – Deuteronomy 8:4
Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

Bible Verses About abominable – Micha 6:10
Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure [that is] abominable?

Bible Verses About true – Revelations 3:14
And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

Bible Verses About machir – Numbers 32:39
And the children of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead, and took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which [was] in it.

Bible Verses About edom – Chronicles-1 15:18
And with them their brethren of the second [degree], Zechariah, Ben, and Jaaziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, Eliab, and Benaiah, and Maaseiah, and Mattithiah, and Elipheleh, and Mikneiah, and Obededom, and Jeiel, the porters.

Bible Verses About near – Samuel-1 10:21
When he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near by their families, the family of Matri was taken, and Saul the son of Kish was taken: and when they sought him, he could not be found.

Bible Verses About dragon – Jeremiah 51:37
And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.

Bible Verses About shed – Ecclesiastes 9:6
Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any [thing] that is done under the sun.

Bible Verses About covenant – Deuteronomy 29:14
Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

Bible Verses About valour – Kings-2 24:14
And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, [even] ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.

Bible Verses About ethiopia – Kings-2 19:9
And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

Bible Verses About flame – Joel 1:19
O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.

Bible Verses About endure – Psalms 136:14
And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy [endureth] for ever:

Bible Verses About ease – Peter-2 2:14
Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

Bible Verses About cain – Genesis 4:24
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

Bible Verses About bowels – Colossians 3:12
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

Bible Verses About captivity – Ezekiel 30:18
At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity.

Bible Verses About noise – Revelations 6:1
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.