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PROGRAM D-8472
“Manipulation temptation”—the term may be new to you, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s that tendency we have to start manipulating people and circumstances when we can’t see how God is going to deliver us or meet our needs.
We’ve seen how Sarah fell victim to “manipulation temptation” when she couldn’t see how she was going to have a baby in her old age. Her first mistake was that she forgot God’s promises and didn’t understand that God’s timetable didn’t have to match hers.
Then she made the next mistake: She thought God needed some help. Since she couldn’t see how she was going to give birth to a baby—but she certainly wanted Abraham to have a son—she came up with her own plan. She urged Abraham to take her maidservant, Hagar, and have a baby by her. This would be the substitute son that would fulfill God’s promise. But God had promised a son from Sarah’s own body, not from a substitute.
Now, where does this manipulation lead Sarah? Oh my, the trouble that she caused by yielding to “manipulation temptation!” First, all kinds of relationship difficulties arose because of it: Hagar despises Sarah for what she has done to her (can you blame her?). Abraham obeyed Sarah instead of God, so his relationship with God was affected. Sarah turned against Hagar after Hagar’s son Ishmael is born, and then blamed Abraham, of all the nerve—so things aren’t very good between those two. Then Abraham, after allowing Sarah to talk him into this idea, doesn’t defend Hagar or her son.
Furthermore, until this very day we see the dire results of Sarah’s manipulation and Abraham’s willingness to go along: There is still great enmity between these two peoples—Ishmael’s descendants and Isaac’s descendants. It all started when Sarah decided to help God out, and she yielded to “manipulation temptation.”
Thirteen years later, Sarah became pregnant. If only Sarah had waited. You see, God still worked his miracle and kept his promise in spite of Sarah’s manipulation. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful…,” we read in 2 Timothy 2:13, but, oh, the misery Sarah caused because she yielded to the temptation to manipulate, which affected not only her and her husband, but many others as well.
If you’re tempted to manipulate your situation today, remember that you are inviting disaster. Let God have control.