Rock and a Hard Place

Have you ever been in between a rock and a hard place, in a situation in which none of your options were good and you felt as if you had to simply choose the lesser of two evils? Abraham was in a similar situation as this one time. Genesis 12:10-20 says that there was a famine in the land of Canaan and Abram was forced to go down to Egypt to look for food. However, before he entered Egypt he told his wife to pretend to be his sister. Abram did this because he was afraid that one of the Egyptians would kill him and then marry Sari, which must have been a culturally acceptable practice 4000 years ago. Next, Abram did something almost unthinkable. When Pharaoh noticed how beautiful Sari was, Abram gave her over to Pharaoh to be his wife in exchange for material goods, sheep, cattle, donkeys, and servants. One of the most horrible things I could ever picture is giving my beloved wife to another man. However, before we are too hard on Abram we must remember that he did not have many options. Either he let his family die of famine in the land of Canaan, or be killed and have his wife stripped away from him anyway. This was the only option, (or so he thought) to keep all of his family alive. However, God did something unexpected. He intervened. The Lord struck Pharaoh with a disease and evidently made him realize that Sari was Abram’s wife not his sister. Pharaoh then made Abram leave the country in shame. However, Abram got Sari back, and escaped with his life. From this I guess we can remember that when we are in between a rock and a hard place, we should remember that God can intervene and give us options we did not realize existed. He can restore what is already broken, and mend mistakes we have made. Let’s remember to be patient and wait for his rescue.