The God Who Sees - January 26
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 119:49-72; PM Psalm 49, [53]; Gen. 16:1-14; Heb. 9:15-28; John 5:19-29
Today’s Reflection
It’s difficult to imagine a more complicated, challenging situation than the one we read of today in Genesis 16. So many layers of emotional entanglement and interpersonal angst! Sarai and Abram have been struggling with infertility. Sarai finally gives up on bearing a child with Abram herself, so she gives her servant Hagar to Abram so that there will be some chance of Abram having biological descendants to carry on his family line. And if all that were not morally and ethically challenging enough, then when Hagar finds that she is, in fact, carrying Abram’s child, and dares to look at Sarai with a look of contempt, Sarai can’t deal with the show of disrespect. And one can imagine that Sarai felt, perhaps, some jealousy that she wasn’t the one carrying the child she and Abram had long been hoping for—though little did Sarai know that she would soon be bearing a child of her own. Sarai tells Abram about the look of contempt and Abram says she’s your servant, do to her as you please—empowering Sarai to mistreat Hagar and send her packing out into the wilderness.
And so it is that we find Hagar pregnant and alone in the wilderness. Hagar didn’t ask for any of this. She wasn’t angling to have Abram’s baby; she wasn’t a willing participant in this complicated family drama. Hagar had no rights—she was seen as property in the eyes of the laws of their time and place, and part of that was that she could be forced against her will to conceive and carry a child. Imagine how utterly alone and powerless Hagar must have felt.
When I consider how I would have felt were I in Hagar’s shoes, the word “forsaken” comes to mind. Forsaken is not a word we often use these days, but when we do it’s often used in the context of being “God forsaken.” Forsaken by itself means abandoned or deserted. One dictionary says to forsake means “to leave someone forever, especially when they need you.” So, to be God-forsaken means that you believe that God has abandoned or deserted you in your time of greatest need. And yet, we believe in a God who “will not leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13: 5).
Just as Hagar is feeling truly forsaken—young, pregnant, cast out, shunned, and with no one to care for her or provide for her in her time of need—an angel appears. But this angel is bearing a message that, in some ways, does not seem like good news for Hagar: return to Sarai and submit to her. But that same angel also reveals an unexpected promise of good for the future: “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” The angel then tells Hagar to name her son Ishmael, which means God hears because God had heard Hagar in her time of affliction—but that the son she will bear will not be someone who goes along peaceably in the world (“he will be a wild ass of a man”). So, good news, God hears you and has not abandoned you—but bad news, you need to return to Sarai and Abram’s house, and your son is going to grow up to be a kind of difficult person. Not exactly the message I would be hoping to receive if an angel visited me!
We can each recall situations in our own lives, or the lives of those we love, that have been challenging beyond measure—often these are paths we have been forced to walk on due to selfish or short-sighted decisions made by others. This was certainly the case for Hagar. Because Sarai wasn’t trusting fully in God and decided to take the situation into her own hands, Hagar is the one who ended up paying the price. And yet, in this moment of revelation in the wilderness, when the angel’s news only brought more layers of challenge, Hagar was able to keep believing in a God who did not abandon her or Ishmael, the son she would bear: “So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’; for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’”
Hagar named God (which is kind of amazing in itself)—and she named him El-roi, “the God who sees me.” No matter how far into the wilderness Hagar fled, no matter how isolated or forsaken she felt, Hagar was never beyond God’s sight—and neither are we. I am grateful to believe in a God who will never leave or forsake me—to know that I am always seen, and loved, by God.
Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
What moments in life left you feeling, even if for a short time, abandoned or forsaken by God? Who or what helped bring you out of this wilderness of forsakenness and back into knowing that you are loved and seen by God?
Daily Challenge
What poems, songs, blessings, or other creative works have served as voices of encouragement during those times when you have felt most forsaken and alone in life? I’ve found the poems and blessings written by Jan Richardson to be encouraging—here’s one, called “Blessing on the Waves,” that may be uplifting to you this day. I also recommend Jan Richardson’s whole book of blessing-poems, The Cure for Sorrow.