Thursday, February 6, 2025

           You may remember the biblical story involving Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael.  If not, here is a brief summary.  God has promised a son to Abraham and Sarah in their “senior years” to put it charitably.  They are childless and God has promised them a son.  Growing both impatient and impulsive, Sarah suggested to Abraham that he conceive a child with her maidservant—a woman named Hagar.  The request was recorded this way, “’The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai said” (Genesis 16:2).  The result, nine months later, is the birth of a son who is given the name Ishmael (which means “God hears”).  The plan worked as Sarah had schemed and thought.  But, the plan was not what God had promised and was not one that God had sanctioned.  God is God and needed no help from Sarah, Abraham and Hagar to do what He had willed to do.   
            Sarah almost immediately became bitter and resentful over Hagar’s pregnancy and what she had not been blessed to receive.  This reaction is curious since the whole scheme was Sarah’s own idea.  She had wanted Hagar to conceive a child who could become the son she and Abraham had longed to see.  Though Sarah was angry, petty and dismissive, God extended compassion and care to Hagar.  And this poor maidservant, preparing to flee with little more than her son, noted that God had seen her and her condition.  The Bible says, “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Genesis 16:13).  The phrase “the God who sees me” is powerful.
            Have you ever thought of God as “seeing you?”  Seeing your plight, your situation, your trials, your joys and your life?  We learn from this simple maidservant that God does see us.  He is the God who sees.  Mark 10 tells us that the Lord hears us too.  Jesus was on His way to Jericho when a blind man named Bartimaeus cried out for Jesus to have mercy on him.  While the crowd rebuked this man and shushed him, Jesus heard the cry.  Jesus then stopped and asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”  The Lord hears us and sees us.  He is not some far-off God who is uninterested in us and distracted by other matters in the universe.  He is the God who sees and hears.
            Later in Genesis 21, God again saw Hagar and heard the cries of Ishmael as they were sent away by Abraham and Sarah to a new life on their own.  God provided a well for sustenance and promised a future to Ishmael—to make him into a great nation in his own right.  Hagar was by no means a leading figure in Scripture.  She was not a prophet, apostle, patriarch, monarch or judge. Yet, God heard and saw her.  We take great comfort in knowing that we worship the God who sees and hears us too.  We worship the Lord who loved us so much that He entered the world as one of us to pay the costly price for our forgiveness and justification.  Jesus is not some distant deity that commands worship from afar, yet rarely connects or engages with His people. Rather, He lived in our shoes, and He experienced many of our experiences (Hebrews 4:15).  He became like us—only without sin.  He had thoughts, emotions, experiences, joys and sorrows just like us. 
            It is powerful to know that God sees us and hears us.  It is profoundly awesome to know that God became one of us to deal with our greatest problem—sinfulness and rebellion against Him.  Like with Hagar, the Lord promises us water that sustains us, a future that is in His care and keep, to guide the direction of life and to write a story for us that is incomparably beautiful.  We might be tempted to write off some places and times in life but God is ready to write in something gracious and good.  We might be tempted to think we are at the end of the rope but God has stretched and lengthened that rope.  Just as we might close some doors, God is opening others.  God sees.  God hears.  God comforts.  God knows.
            In looking at the story of Hagar, we find a woman with nowhere else to turn who makes a turn toward the Lord and rejoices in what she finds. That same turn remains available to us today.  Genesis 21:20 says that “God was with the boy (Ishmael) as he grew up.”  The very boy whom Sarah loathed and whom Abraham sent away was not forgotten by God.  He was not overlooked either.  And the good news is we are neither forgotten nor forsaken today.  He remains the One who sees, hears and knows.  And for that truth, we rejoice!  And as we await His return, we entrust ourselves to Him.  Have a great Thursday!  Worship and study God’s Word with us on Sunday!