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Genesis 16:2 "[A]nd Sarai said to Abram, 'Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my maid [Hagar]; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.' And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai."

 

As we know, Hagar is going to treat Sarai with contempt once she is pregnant by Abram, and Sarai will deal harshly with Hagar, causing Hagar to flee into the wilderness. (Genesis 16:4-6). An angel will come to Hagar in the wilderness and tell her to return to Abram's camp and submit to Sarai. The angel promises Hagar that her descendants will be greatly multiplied and that she will have a son, to be named Ishmael, who will be "a wild ass of a man; his hand against every man and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell over against his kinsman." (Genesis 16:7-12)

 

A few verses later, God will speak similar words to Abram, while changing his name to Abraham, telling him: "[I] will multiply you exceedingly ... and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations." (Genesis 17:2-4). This multitude of nations includes the descendants of Ishmael, "As for Ishmael ... behold, I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly ... I will make him a great nation." (Genesis 17:20). But Ishmael's descendants are not the focus of God's promise to Abraham, rather, God says "But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, who Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year." (Genesis 17:21). 

 

So by her impatience in wanting children, Sarai, later Sarah, set in motion a chain of events that would lead to two great nations, two multitudes of people, one springing from "a wild ass of a man" who is against every man and every man is against him, and one springing from Abraham and Sarah's son, a son promised by the Lord and with whom God intends to make an eternal covenant - "to be God to you and your descendants after you." (Genesis 17:7). Those two nations have become many nations and multitudes of peoples, the Judeo-Christian descendants of Isaac, and the now Islamic descendants of Ishmael.

 

Obviously, Sarah didn't intend any of this, she just wanted to have children, and wrongly used her maid to get them. For one thing, this shows how our actions can have very unintended consequences, and how our bad actions come back to bite us. But in a much larger sense, it shows how God uses everything for His purposes. Sarah's misguided attempt to get what she wanted ended up bringing forth another great nation, one not in covenant with God, fathered by Hagar's wild ass of a son, and with whom the great nation sprung from her natural son will have to contend over and over again through history. The hero and his foil are thus both fathered by the same man and the story of salvation history starts getting good!

 

Sarah's story is in the Bible because it is so consequential, but people make very controlling, immoral, manipulative, poorly thought out decisions all the time. God has included those decisions in His plan as well. He saw them before we made them, He will use their consequences for His purposes. Even if we don't like what He does with them, they are just as much a part of the story of our salvation history as Sarah's was.