God Sees All
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. (Genesis 21:17-21)
Hagar had no agency over her body, her life, or the life of her son. She was given by Sarah to Abraham to bear a son on Sarah's behalf yet, once Hagar was pregnant, Sarah's jealousy led her to accuse Hagar of being disdainfully proud. Sarah treated Hager so maliciously that Hagar fled. The angel of the Lord told Hagar to return and submit to Sarah - promising that Hagar's descendants would be too numerous to count. Hagar was obedient. She returned and gave birth to Ishmael. But once Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the situation reached a boiling point. When Sarah thought she needed Hagar, she tolerated her presence. As soon as Sarah felt her security was fixed, she wanted to remove any reminders of what she may have perceived as her own weaknesses - her previous inability to have children and her lack of faith in God's ability to do a miraculous thing in and through her.
We might wish that God had chastised Sarah for her treatment of Hagar, but sometimes we are Sarah. Sometimes we've been so beaten down by life that we're afraid to hope for better, we're afraid to truly accept God's blessings, and, in our fear, we lash out at those more vulnerable. God didn't need to punish Sarah. Her fear became her prison and her inability to trust God, and fully rejoice in God's blessings were her life sentence. We might wish that God hadn't told Hagar to return to her potentially abusive situation because sometimes we are Hagar. As soon as we begin to make the best out of a bad situation, our joy is seen as a threat and risks becoming our undoing. Hagar's relationship with God - her ability to talk to and hear from God - was her freedom, and her willingness to trust God fully became her peace.
While we often don't know what's behind someone else's anger, God knows and sees all, and God responds - just not often in ways that we expect. Mercifully, God's ways are not our ways. God meets our doubts, our fears, our exhaustion with continuous provision and grace. It's up to us to receive the blessing and strive to
give that gift of grace to others.
1 Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; 3 be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all day long. 4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you. 6 Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication. 7 In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me. 8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
(Psalm 86:1-8)
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