For today, read through Genesis chapter 16.

The Bible’s main way of talking about God’s relationship to humanity is the image of a partnership. This video on covenants traces the way God entered into a series of formal relationships with various human partners in order to rescue the world through Jesus, the ultimate covenant partner.

DEVOTIONAL:

"Return to thy Mistress, and submit thyself under her hands" -Genesis 16:9

Poor Hagar! No wonder that she fled. Her proud Arab independence and the sense of coming motherhood made her rebel against Sarah's hard dealings. We have often meditated flight, if we have not actually fled from intolerable conditions. Of course, when God opens the door out of a dungeon we need not hesitate, as Peter did, to rise and follow. But this is very different to flight from the post of duty.

Our Cross.—For Hagar, Sarah; for Hannah, Penninah; for David, Joab; for Jesus, Judas; for Paul, Alexander the coppersmith. Life assumes hard and forbidding aspects. Sometimes the cross is not a person, but a trial—the pressure of a slow and lingering disease; the demand for grinding and persistent toil; the weight of over-mastering anxiety for those dearer than life, who have no knowledge of God.

Our Demeanor.—Return and submit. We are apt to suppose that we shall get rest and peace elsewhere. It is not so, however. Nowhere else shall we find the path less rugged, or the pillow less hard. To evade the yoke will not give us heartsease. The Master's advice is that we shall take his yoke, and bear it as He did; remain where God has put us, till He shows us another place; and bear what He ordains and permits, even though it comes through the means of others.

Our Faith.—We cannot patiently submit to our lot unless we believe that what God permits is as much his will as what He appoints. Behind Sarah's hard dealings we must behold his permissive providence. Through all the discipline of life we must believe that God has a purpose of unfailing love and wisdom. Then our submission is not stoicism, but loving acquiescence in our Father's will.

–FB Meyer