THE GOD WHO SEES

One of the intriguing and troubling subplots amid the stories of Abraham is the story of Hagar. It seems that she doesn’t belong and is incorporated into the story only as a direct result of Abraham’s and Sarah’s mutual failure of faith and courage.

And when the alternative plan they concocted seemed to be working for them, we find Hagar at her lowest point. Hagar was a foreigner—an Egyptian—in the household of Abraham, a female slave who could not make her own decisions, simultaneously abused by Abraham and Sarah and reliant on them for support and protection.

When she became pregnant, Hagar was then the subject of Sarah’s further jealous mistreatment. So she ran away, and an angel found her alone in the desert. From Hagar’s perspective, the predicament in which she found herself seemed less of a problem than the circumstances from which she was escaping. So, an angel brought her a message of encouragement. He asked her to tell her story and, in response, gave her a promise of her own.

In the name the angel gave to her son was the promise that God hears (see Genesis 16:11). Remarkably, Hagar then gave a name to God, who had sent this messenger. This foreign, abused, fugitive, and enslaved woman was the first person in the story of the Bible to name God—an act of great significance in those ancient cultures.

For Hagar, the God whose messenger had found her in the desert, near the well that would also be named by this encounter, was the God who saw and knew her suffering. And for all who are excluded, abused, oppressed, and afraid, God is the God who sees and knows your suffering, your loneliness, and your despair. A God who sees is a God who cares—and has been recognized and named as such by so many people in such situations throughout history.