Maids who played important parts in the lives of Bible Characters

Hagar

Genesis 16:-1-8  

1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;

2 so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

6 “Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.

8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I'm running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

Zilpah

Genesis 29:24

And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant.

Genesis 30:9-12  

9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her maidservant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

10 Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.

11 Then Leah said, “What good fortune!” So she named him Gad.

12 Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.

The Choice is Ours

 “You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”  1 Peter 1:23 NIV

We are free either to love God or not. He invites us to love Him. He urges us to love Him. He came that we might love Him. But, in the end, the choice is yours and mine. To take that choice from each of us, for Him to force us to love Him, would be less than love . . .

He leaves the choice to us. - Max Lucado