God Hears You; God Sees You

When you think about it, it is surprising that Scripture would give such attention to the story of Hagar (in Genesis 16).

Those who wrote and passed along the scriptures were adamant about this fact: God’s redemptive work was done through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The record of Ishmael’s birth could be considered a distraction, at best, from the redemption story, or, at worst, an ugly stain on the reputations of Abraham and Sarah.  Yet this story is preserved in the pages of holy Scripture. 

Moreover, all the cultures that surrounded Abraham and Hagar viewed slaves merely as tools to be used and discarded.  In some of the royal tombs in Ur, the city God had called Abraham away from, archaeologists found as many as 60 to 80 skeletal remains of escorts, guards, musicians and servants who had been marched into the royal tombs with a deceased ruler to accompany the king or queen into the afterlife.  According to the thinking of the day, slaves’ lives had no value other than what they might do for their master.  Yet Genesis 16 speaks of God commissioning an angel to find Hagar and to speak with her.

Why is this story included in Scripture?  What does God want us to learn from the story of Hagar?

Here’s what Hagar discovers:

Hagar discovers that her agony is heard by God.  In verse 11, the angel says to Hagar, “Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord has given heed to your affliction.”  The name Ishmael means, “God hears.”  And the angel explains to her that “the Lord has given heed to your affliction.”  The fact that God “has given heed” to her affliction implies that God has not merely heard the words she said but that God paid attention to the agony in her tears and that God acted in response to her cry.

Hagar discovers, also, that she is seen by God.  In the angel who appears to her, Hagar recognizes that she is dealing with God, so she identifies God as El-roi, “the God who sees,” and she asks, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”  And she names the well Beer-lahai-roi, which means, “the Well of the Living One who sees me.” 

Hagar discovers that she matters to God.  Though, as a slave, the law gave her no value, and society gave her no significance, though Abraham used her and Sarah abused her, God pays attention to her.  She matters to God!

A young woman, whose blog site is titled “The Journal of My Insignificant Life” writes,

“If I don’t need love, why am I crying?

If I don’t need love, why am I suffering?

When I’m all alone, I feel like dying.

My soul is ripping, so heart-breaking.

‘Cause I dream of love, though I tried to hate it.

Yes, I dream of love, and I know I’ll never find it.”

That could have been written by Hagar…until she discovered that her life was not insignificant, that her cry had been heard, and that she had been seen by God. 

In Hagar’s story, we discover that we, too, matter to God, that God hears our cries, and that God sees us. 

A.W. Tozer asserts, “We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God.  He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thought.”  This is true because of the fact that we matter immensely to God!

As Brennan Manning prays in Abba’s Child, “Today on planet Earth, may you experience the wonder and beauty of yourself as Abba’s Child and temple of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We are blessed by God to be a blessing to others

The word genesis has to do with the beginning. It has to do with origin.

The book of Genesis tells the story of two beginnings.  It tells the story of God’s creation of the world, and it tells the story of the beginning of God’s relationship with people. 

The reason why the book of Genesis includes two distinct beginnings is because of sin.  God made a world that was tremendously good, but sin corrupted the good that God had created.  Nevertheless, God was not to be deterred by sin, so God made a second beginning.  God reached out to a particular person, Abram, and to his descendants, and through them to the whole world.

On New Year’s Day, 1929, the University of California (my alma mater) was playing Georgia Tech in the Rose Bowl.  Shortly before half time, a Cal player named Roy Riegels recovered a Georgia Tech fumble and ran with it 65 yards toward the wrong end zone before his own teammate caught up with him and tackled him just short of the goal line.  Cal was not able to move the ball, and their fourth down punt was blocked in the end zone for a two-point safety (which turned out to be the ultimate margin of victory for Georgia Tech).  Riegels felt horrible about letting his team down.  He did not want to leave the locker room when the teams returned to the field for the third quarter.  When Coach Nibbs Price told Riegels that he would be starting the second half, he said, “Coach, I can’t do it.  I’ve ruined you.  I’ve ruined the University of California.  I’ve ruined myself.  I couldn’t face that crowd in the stadium to save my life.”  Coach Price put his hand on Riegels’ shoulder and said to him, “Roy, get up and go on back; the game is only half over.” 

Haddon Robinson remarks, “When I think of this story, I think ‘What a coach!’  And then I think about all the big mistakes I’ve made in life and how God is willing to forgive me and let me try again.  I take the ball and run in the wrong direction.  I stumble and fall and am so ashamed of myself that I never want to show my face again.  But God comes to me in the person of his son Jesus Christ, and he says, ‘Get up and go on back; the game is only half over.’  That is the gospel of the second chance.  Of the third chance.  Of the hundredth chance.  And when I think of that, I have to say, ‘What a God!’”

Though humanity’s sin had corrupted God’s good creation, God’s goodness was not to be deterred.  God arranged for a new beginning by reaching out to a particular person named Abram, with the expressed purpose of blessing the whole world through Abram and his descendants.  When God reached out to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3, God said to Abram, “I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

As God did with Abram, God’s intent is to pour his goodness into us so that God’s goodness can seep out of us to others.  Therefore, our purpose in life is to take in God’s goodness and share God’s goodness with others.

In Wellsprings of Wisdom, Ralph L. Woods writes, “An ambitious farmer, unhappy about the yield of his crops, heard of a highly recommended new seed corn.  He bought some and produced a crop that was so abundant his astonished neighbors asked him to sell them a portion of the new seed.  But the farmer, afraid that he would lose a profitable competitive advantage, refused.  The second year, the new crop did not produce as good a crop, and when the third-year crop was still worse, it dawned upon the farmer that his prize corn was being pollinated by the inferior grade corn from his neighbors’ fields.”  If he had taken to heart that he had been blessed to be a blessing to others, everyone’s crops would have excelled.  But when he refused to be a blessing to others, everyone’s crops suffered.

As God revealed to Abram, and as God revealed through Abram, we are blessed by God and we are to be a blessing to others.