The story of Hagar has been staying on my mind lately. I just read it a few weeks ago but it lingers. She was the African girl used by Abraham and Sarah to surrogate the first son Ishmael. She was a slave and had little or no say about the conjugal visits.
After achieving thier goal. Sarah and Abraham wanted to rid themselves of the problem. She ran away to a desert place and prepared to die. But our God intervened. From this venerable position, Hagar became the first women to name God in scripture. She called Him the "God who sees me." She also names her son Ishmael--"God hears me"
I don't know about you but for me there are times when I feel God does not see me or hear me. In this world where one is often pushed aside, one calls for help and gets a recorded message, one tries to have integrity and still is taken advantage of---in a world like this one can feel ignored or even hated. Dr. King said hatred is not the worst thing you can do to a person but indifference is worst still.
People today seem soooooo indifferent. They don't care about ill responsive leaders or even sinful leaders. They are indifferent.
I have been know to be indifferent myself but I am glad to know I serve a God who sees me and hears me. I am often lonely and voiceless but God sees and hears me. I want you to know he hears you as well. The Word says He will hear anyone who cries out to Him. Yes anyone includes you my friend. Just cry out to him today --please take this advice. a good cry can help especially to the God who hears and sees.
love ya
Pastor B
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Interesting! I just finished reading the story of Hagar and I have mixed feelings on it. The feeling that stands out the most is that in my opinion, this seems to be a great example of Gods permissive will oppossed to Gods perfect will. God has a plan for us, but we have a plan for ourselves, but through it all he still blesses us.
When God told Abraham that he will bless him with a son, Abraham looked at the present situation of him and his wife and could not see past it. Although God told him, that his wife would bear a son and he would be the father of many nations, they still took matters in their own hands.
Sarah giving her maid servent to Abraham seemed like a good idea in the beginning, but they failed to realize that God did not need their help in fullfilling his promise to them. The end result was that Sarah was unhappy with the fact that this other woman now had a son by her husband and wanted them to be gone from her life.
We do this all the time! Once we are believing God to move in our lives, we become impatient and try to fulfill his promises for us, ourselves. The end result is that we delay the process and we now have to deal with the consequences of out actions.
I could be wrong but one of the reasons why I believe that Hagar suffered is because her situation was not what God intended when her said he would bless Abraham. In the end God told Abraham that he would bless Ishmael anyway, because he was his son, but that did not make the situation any easy for the others who were involved.
It was not easy for Sarah, Abraham, or Hagar, especially Hagar because she was an innocent bystander in the situation. When we make our own choices and they do not go according to plan, we then sit back and wonder where God is in this mess of a sitution we have created.
We feel that God can not see us, nor hear us, but that is not the truth. We need to be positioned to hear God and to see God because he is always there. In the hoousehold of Abraham and Sarah, they called the shots since Hagar was only a maid servent. Her being put out was probably the best thing that could have happened to hear even though she felt lost, abandoned, and alone. It was in that place that she was able to see and her God and he was able to place her where he desired her to be. Does this sound familiar?
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