Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
- Genesis 16:1-13
One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
- Genesis 39:11-23
Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”
At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
- Ruth 1:3-18
After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”
David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”
He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.
- 2 Samuel 12:15-25
Children are a heritage from the Lord,
offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
- Psalm 127:3-4
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
- John 3:16
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
- Isaiah 61:1
The Boilerplate
My wife took a Bible Study in 2011. (There was a note in the study guide that identified September 2 and that the study was being held on Friday mornings, or I might not have ever figured out what year.) My wife had become a Christian in 2000. She greatly respected the pastor’s wife who was also a pastor. The pastor’s wife spent time as the interim associate pastor, and this Bible study might have been during that time.
My wife passed away in March 2023, and I found this study guide as I was cleaning up. It is a Beth Moore study guide. Most of the questions are close-ended, mostly fill-in-the-blank. But my wife was eager to learn. She wrote her thoughts in the margins, sometimes encouraged to do so by Beth Moore. I will use her comments as I did once before, calling this a “with a little help” series in that my wife contributes. There is more to follow in that she wrote Scriptures and prayers in a notebook. Probably what she found in her personal Bible study, giving her encouragement through the long illness that took her life.
So, instead of writing about a topic at random, I am going to write on my wife’s comments in the Study Guide. It may follow the study guide topics, but it may not.
Discussion on this topic
Beth Moore starts off with four Bible stories. In each story, someone is brokenhearted. But in each story, God binds their broken heart.
In Genesis 16:1-13, what are the circumstances and how does God bind up the broken heart?
“No child for Sarai, but Hagar had one and left because of abuse. God promises Hagar a son who’ll have many offspring.”
- My wife’s response
Sarai offered her Egyptian slave to Abram without thinking of the consequences. She became jealous. You might say that Hagar started it. One could imagine the conversation. Hagar said, “You gave me to your husband to prove that he was sterile, but now I have an unwanted child and you are the fool.” The writer allows you to fill in the blanks, and that is my guess. Yes, Sarai complained to her husband and then mistreated Hagar, for her insolence, but also out of jealousy. The angel of the Lord speaks to Hagar after she runs away. She returns only to have Sarah (formerly Sarai) get pregnant at an advanced age. She is stuck taking care of Isaac, while Abraham plays with Ishmael. The second time of Hagar leaving cleared up the mess, but the prophecy above is still true, with the descendants of Ishmael angry with their neighbors and their neighbors angry with them.
My wife told our daughter-in-law that I was hopeless when the baby is first born, but once they can begin to play, I would be the child’s play buddy. I have a feeling Abraham was a lot like me. Once the baby gets old enough, I can teach him all kinds of stuff, but changing diapers… Okay, I did that, but I was clumsy.
In Genesis 39:11-23, what are the circumstances and how does God bind up the broken heart?
“Joseph was accused by Potiphar’s wife of sleeping with her. God was kind to Joseph in prison and Joseph won favor with the guard.”
- My wife’s response
Okay, it was the warden of the prison, but the point was that Joseph was treated well while in prison, and Joseph honed his management skills so that when God sent a dream to Pharoah, Joseph would be highly skilled to take on the work God had in mind for Joseph all along. What was meant for bad became good. God is indeed sovereign.
In Ruth 1:3-18, what are the circumstances and how does God bind up the broken heart?
“Naomi asked Ruth to go back to her people after the death of Naomi’s son. She refused. God granted Ruth a new home, and eventually a new husband.”
- My wife’s response
This shortens the four-chapter book of Ruth a great deal, but the relationship between Naomi and Ruth had become a very strong one. God bound up this heartbreak through that relationship, as we can mend our lives with a greater relationship with Jesus Christ.
In 2 Samuel 12:15-23, what are the circumstances and how does God bind up the broken heart?
“David lost his first born son. He worshipped the Lord in spite of his son’s death.”
- My wife’s response
This was the firstborn from Bathsheba, having had many sons before this one, but my wife’s comment about David worshipping the Lord instead of breaking down in grief was instructive to her. My wife gained much confidence in her vision in February of 2000. She knew she was saved, but in Bible studies, especially glimpses like this when David says that he will be with his son once again, those fortified my wife’s faith in God.
When looking at the psalmist’s words about our children in Psalm 127, my wife replied.
“Sons are a heritage from the Lord. They’re a gift from God.”
- My wife’s inner thoughts
With that in mind, how does that change your perspective on Jesus being God’s Son (John 3:16), yet, God had Him come to earth to die for our sins?
“God’s only Son – because He loves us.”
- My wife’s response
The memory verse was Isaiah 61:1, which echoes what she said above.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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