GOD OF HAGAR But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. 7 And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarais maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. 10 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every mans hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. 13 And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? 14 Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; Gen 16:6-14 (KJV) Hagar is a peculiar character in the bible. She is one of those characters that are mostly spoken of in the negative. She is a slave. She is an Egyptian. She slept with her mistress’ husband and became pregnant for him. She became proud and arrogant and looked on her mistress with disdain. The symbolisms and the present day cultural affiliations to what Hagar did leave her in a very bad light. So Hagar, like most of us, started from the position of disadvantage. Hagar in my opinion should not be blamed for most of what happened. Abraham was old enough to be her father or even grandfather, why would she desire to sleep with such an old man? She believed she was being used – and that was true. But she had no choice because she was only a slave. It was not her fault that Sarah couldn’t conceive. It was not her making that she immediately took in for Abraham. Pregnancy has its challenges and obviously she could not carry out her tasks as a slave with the pregnancy. Sarah read that as an attitude problem. And yes, Hagar had an attitude problem. I don’t know of any woman in her shoes who wouldn’t show that attitude. But trust Sarah. She can handle the little brat. It wasn’t long before this Egyptian girl thought it would be better to go back to Egypt with her pregnancy. It does appear that she did not know she was pregnant because it was the angel that announced to her in the desert. And so when the persecution from Sarah became unbearable she ran away from home and headed straight for Egypt. She ran from salvation and went back into the world (Egypt) that is how we will be tempted to interpret her action today. But no, this was not an act of backsliding. This was an act of a girl ready to now chart her destiny against all odds. Friends, there are times you need to run away from comfort if you want to have your destiny. Hagar shows it, and Moses emphasized it. She was not running away from the promise, she believed that she carried the promised seed of Abraham. How can you run away from something that is inside of you? When God saw this resolve, to push on to destiny no matter what dangers may lie on the way, God said, “Yes! This is the moment to show Hagar who I am.” Follow this carefully. God appeared bodily as a human being to Hagar. God had a discussion with Hagar and declared things she had no idea of to her. God told her about the situation we are facing in the Middle East today and that was about 5,000 years ago. God was saying all of this to an Egyptian slave girl that was running away from her mistress in search of her own destiny. You are not a slave! Perhaps you don’t have money, but Hagar had no money as well! Your path seems uncertain, she faced certain death in the wilderness too. The difference between you and Hagar, is that, Hagar came to a day when she decided, she will no longer be any ordinary slave girl. Her destiny was much bigger than that. If she can carry the seed of Abraham, then Abraham can look for her wherever she goes. She needed to rewrite her own story. When will you decide to rewrite yours? The Angel: “Return to your mistress and act as you should, for I will make you into a great nation. Yes, you are pregnant and your baby will be a son, and you are to name him Ishmael (‘God hears’), because God has heard your woes. This son of yours will be a wild one—free and untamed as a wild ass! He will be against everyone, and everyone will feel the same toward him. But he will live near the rest of his kin.”Gen 16;9-12 (TLB) God in his mercies, unveiled the destiny that Hagar knew she carried but could not expressly define. Until you can clearly define what you carry, you can not give birth to it. Yes you feel this sense of greatness inside, but great as what? The dream on your inside, have you ever bothered to write it down in one paragraph? Hagar as a slave lacked the training and the experience to carry out such a high level activity. But when you decide to show the world your God, he will make you do things your training and background would never have permitted you to do. That day, Hagar gave God a name. It was not the name that Abraham called God. It was not the name that Sarah called God. It was not the name that Noah or Enoch or Abel or any of the righteous ones that had lived before that time called God. Her God was no longer the ‘god’ that Abraham worshipped. It was no longer the stories that her parents told her. It was now a personal experience. She screamed, “El lahai Roi” THE GOD WHO SEES ME! The God who knows my sufferings. The God who understands my fears. The God who watches over me. The God of Hagar! We see Him again when Hagar is sent packing from Abraham’s house 13 years after the birth of this child. And He is still the same God, showing up when Hagar is in woes and tears and lost again in the desert. Who is your God? Abraham never knew God in this dimension. Sarah never knew God in this dimension. But a slave girl from Egypt of all places, defined a new experience of God that the world has not been able to turn back from. O My God! How will the world define your God? (c) OMG! DeepWords Devotional
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 10:49:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015