Gen 16:13 And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me:
So it has been a few weeks since I have last written on this Blog in some form and I can say that for the mass majority of that time, it has been busy but very good. I have seen God blessing me in such amazing ways and I am so very thankful for it. One of the best things that has happened during this time away is that my Church had a week long revival and the Lord made a way that I was able to attend every night but one.
It was an amazing Revival, and 2 of the services stuck out to me most. The first one was actually the day before the Revival “officially” started, it was that Sunday and I can say it was one of my most favorite services I have ever been a part of. The Spirit was stirring so strongly in the morning that you could just feel Him, so much so that preaching wasn't even needed for someone to get saved!! I am so glad to have a Pastor that recognized that God was in the midst of the service and didn't try and force his own idea of how it should go, and just let God be God.
The second one was very similar, God was moving so strongly that there was little need for preaching and both of these services left a major impression on me. It is my hope and prayer that our Church continues to mind the Lord and just let Him have His way. Not only did those services leave an impression on me but during that week God moved greatly upon me during one night at home in prayer, and he led me to the Chapter quoted above, Genesis 16. What He showed me in these verses profoundly affected me, so much so that even over a week later I am still contemplating, meditating and thinking upon it and felt moved to share it with others, hoping God speaks to them as strongly through it as He did to me.
I highly suggest reading the whole chapter to understand the full context of what is happening but a quick overview of the chapter is that we come upon Abram and Sarai (soon to be Abraham and Sarah) and they are becoming worried and impatient about the fact that they hadn't had a child yet to carry on the family legacy. In those days it was extremely important for the Man to Father a Son so that the family can be passed on. Sarah and Abraham were coming to a point or passed a point in which Sarah could have a child with Abraham as she had become too old.
So Sarah convinces Abraham to be with her Egyptian Handmaiden named Hagar so that he could have a child and so that the family can carry on. Abraham agrees and he and Hagar are with each other and Hagar becomes pregnant. When Sarah sees that Hagar is pregnant she becomes angry and jealous and lies to Abraham saying that Hagar was the one who became angry with her. Abraham tells Sarah do what you will with her as she is your Handmaiden and so Sarah turns on Hagar, treats her terribly and runs her off.
Hagar, hurt and scared, runs from Abraham and Sarah and finds herself alone in the wilderness, pregnant and not knowing what on earth to do. It was at this point God began to open my eyes to each of these people, their perspectives, what and how they must have felt and showed me how this relates to myself, to others and to the Church. We have 3 characters in these events and they each show us different things about ourselves and the Church as well as the Lord. And today I want to share with you what God showed me in each one of these people.
First we have Abraham and as I have sat and meditated, thought, prayed and studied over Abraham in these events I can see some lessons I and we ought to learn through his life at this time. In the previous chapter God made a promise to Abraham that He would give to him a child of his own lineage. It said at that point Abraham believed on God for that promise and it was counted to him as Righteousness. There is a whole entire theme and lesson on that which relates to Salvation but that is for a different time. I bring this up because we see in the previous chapter Abraham when alone with God completely believed and accepted that God would do what He said He would do.
However in this chapter we see Abraham follow some really bad advice. Now in one perspective we can understand how and why Abraham would do what Sarah had asked him to do. They were old, Sarah couldn't have a child, and it was part of the culture in that day for the head male of the household to lay with someone else in the household to carry on the lineage. I would say from a Secular perspective Sarah had good intentions and Abraham also could have reasoned this was not something bad to do.
Yet we know that God never once told them to act in this way, God never told Sarah to ask Abraham to lay with Hagar, and Abraham was never told by God to go lay with Hagar. We see in Abraham that he went by his own reason, without consulting God and followed the advice of someone who also wasn't consulting with God about what they should do in this situation.
As I was shown this, and thought about it I could only see myself in Abraham, how often have I made moves in my life without consulting God? How often have I allowed the influence of those who hadn't consulted God to direct my life? How often had I let my Wife or Girlfriend cause me to go outside of God's will or timing so I could appease them? Many more times than I could count.
So there is a lesson we should heed about Abraham concerning the consequences we can face when we decide to go out on our own logic and thought, or be influenced by others, apart from consulting with God and going the way in which He would have us to go. There is a second lesson I see in Abraham but I will mention it in a moment.
Then we have Sarah, one who, like Abraham, devises her own plan to solve their apparent problems without consulting God beforehand. As I stated before I don't think Sarah did this with evil or bad intentions, she was trying to do what she thought was good and I can't even begin to think how much it had to hurt for her to be willing to ask her own husband to sleep with someone else. There is definitely a sense of unselfishness in the act, however in all ways it deviates from what God had planned and it ended up causing all sorts of terrible emotions and reactions to occur.
This acting out of God's will, or prior to consulting God beforehand, caused Sarah to have to endure what must have been awful feelings and then she reacted terribly due to these feelings. Sarah must have been angry that she was never able to conceive but now her handmaiden was pregnant by her husband. She must have been jealous, why couldn't she have gotten pregnant years ago. She must have felt ashamed and unworthy, she wasn't able to give Abraham a child for all these years, she probably felt she was defective in her own mind.
All of these feelings and emotions ended up causing Sarah to act in multiple terrible ways, first and foremost she lied about Hagar. She tells Abraham that Hagar was treating her badly when that never was the case, but Sarah couldn't stand to have all of those feelings thrown up in her face day after day when she saw Hagar. Sarah was in a place where she would be willing to do almost anything to get Hagar the object of her failures away from her.
Before I continue about Sarah I would like to touch on the 2nd lesson we see in Abraham, which is that he didn't stand up and take responsibility for his own actions and once again did something wrong to appease his wife. When Sarah lied to him about Hagar, Abraham should have taken the position of authority that he was in and made a decision himself about the fate of Hagar. If he would have made a Godly decision about Hagar he would have told Sarah that Hagar should not leave because she was pregnant.
Abraham doesn't do that, instead he wriggles his way out of the situation and puts the decision on Sarah. So we see that second lesson in Abraham that even when we do mess up and go outside of the will of God on things we need to take responsibility for them and act in a righteous manner because when we try and put off those things, it will inevitably lead to much more harm.
And so with the responsibility and power in Sarah's hands to decide Hagar's fate, she takes all those terrible feelings and throws them all onto Hagar. I can just see Sarah coming down on Hagar, all those toxic feelings Sarah had bottled up, that hurt, angry, jealous, shame, all being poured out on Hagar. And as much as I wanted to in my heart and mind be made at Sarah, God cut me to the core and asked, how many times have you been Sarah?
Ugh!! Oh what a terrible mirror to look into and see that I have very often been a reflection of Sarah. How often have I taken my hurt, worry, jealous, angry, problems out on those who didn't deserve them!! How many times have I blown up at others, held things in until they exploded in torrents of rage, pouring them down upon innocent people?
As I began to contemplate and deal with the times I have done that personally, God began to show me and ask me how many times has the Church done that to people. How many times have people in the Church decided upon themselves with no consultation to just heap judgement and anger upon others. How often have we either been directly affected by this at Church or seen others ran out of Churches because they did something one or two people may not think is right? How many have believed lies and then spoke out against the person being lied about?
I know personally I have been Church hurt, I have had people I thought were my friends turn on me real quick over situations they were lied to about. I have had people I thought loved me turn ice cold in an instant. I have literally had an entire Church all at once stand up and try and essentially shout me down about a non salvation doctrine, and man every one of those times it was devastating.
So we can see the lessons in Sarah, like Abraham don't go outside of God's will and timing to get the things we think we need or want. Also let us be mindful of how we are treating others, how we judge others, that we like Sarah don't treat them harshly and cause them to run off, either out of our lives or away from the Church.
And then I see Hagar, and in the past I have never really thought much of Hagar, and to be honest if I did it was probably more negative than anything. She gives birth to Ishmael who eventually goes on to essentially be the father of Muslims and Islam, and we all know the massive global war spanning for centuries between the Muslims and Jews. If it wasn't for Hagar then the Jews and Muslims wouldn't be fighting and causing so much division in the world.
However in reading and praying over this again my perspective totally changed, and my heart totally went out to Hagar. This poor woman, used by Sarah and Abraham and then treated terribly and driven out from her home by them. This poor woman losing everything she had, and mistreated by the people who had up until then loved and provided for her, who she loved and helped for her life. Hagar who was taken advantage of, who was innocent in everything, who was trying as best as she could to please everyone, to then be lied about and forced to flee into the wilderness all alone.
Oh how my heart ached for her and oh how much I could identify with her. I have been driven out by the ones I loved, if you know about my personal life then you know I have lost my entire family, home, dogs, everything last year. I was trying as best as I could to provide, to do well by, to do what I could for those whom I loved and thought loved me, to be literally driven out of my home into a place completely alone. How I could relate on a personal level with her in that loss, in that aloneness, in that fear and anger, feelings of betrayal.
My heart also went out to the hundreds of people that have been driven out of Churches in their life, who for whatever reason have had to endure the judgement and mistreatment by people in their Church and then feel they only have one resort, to flee alone. I know plenty of people who have turned their back on Church because of how they have been treated, who 100% love the Lord but can't stand Organized Religion because of how many times they have been hurt and had others pour their misplaced anger out on them.
Oh how my heart breaks for all of you who have endured that pain, that loss and are now in the Spiritual Wilderness trying to keep up your relationship with the Lord alone. The ones who are trying to be that single branch far from the vine, but are becoming weak and afraid. And if the story ended there then I would be in tears continually but how thankful I am that it didn't end there for Hagar and if this is you, it doesn't have to end that way for you either.
Even though Hagar ran away, there was still someone who was there for her. Even though Hagar was alone in the wilderness, there was still someone who was out there with her. Even though Hagar was afraid and didn't know what she was supposed to do, there was still someone who was there, watching and keeping an eye out for her.
Oh how thankful I am to have a God That Sees me in my times of trouble, that sees me when I have been mistreated and despised. A God that sees me when the world has turned their back on me, has given up on me, who has told me I am nothing but a failure and no good to anyone. How thankful am I that I too can call my God the God that sees me!!!
If you are out here today feeling alone in the wilderness, if you are the one who has ran away from everyone and everything because you have been hurt and made to feel ashamed for who you are, if you are the one who thinks no one cares for you, then I am here to show you the lesson in Hagar. That lesson we can learn is that God is a God that SEES YOU. He knows where you are at, He knows why you are there and He is telling you now just as He tells Hagar to return.
Return to Him if you have run from Him, He loves you and will follow you right into the wilderness to show you just how much He loves you!!
If you have been Church hurt, then God is telling you to RETURN, get back to a Church, pray to God about it and then step out and go. Only Satan wants you to be away from the Body of Christ.
When we look at the promise God made Hagar He told her:
10 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
He told her to return and she will be blessed exceedingly and that is exactly what happened. I don't know exactly who this is for, but I know there is someone who is reading this, that knows that this is God speaking directly to you. RETURN back to Him, RETURN back to Church and let God bless you exceedingly!!!
God sees you, God knows all about it, all God is asking from you right now is to Return in Faith to Him because He wants nothing more than to bless you exceedingly above and beyond what you can ask or think!!
If you are Lost then you are in the wilderness and God sees you as well, He sees you wandering alone and afraid and He is calling you to turn to Him in belief of the Gospel. To believe that your Sin has caused you to be separated from Him and will lead you to Death and Hell, to believe that Jesus who is God has come born of a virgin, lived a perfect life and took upon Himself all of your Sins on the Cross. Who died was buried and on the 3rd day resurrected defeating Death and Hell and then ascended to the Right Hand of the Father where He is making intercession for you right now. If you change your mind about your Sin and believe in the Gospel I can tell you with no doubt that God will save you and bring you Eternal Life.
I pray that we all RETURN to God, the God that sees us in our struggles, trials, and valleys and loves us more than we can ever know!!!
I love you all, have a great day and blessed day in the Lord!
If you need prayer or anything else please feel free to reach out to me and I will help you the best I can and if I can't help I know one man that can, this man named Jesus!
Disciples
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Living
Existence
Gen 15:15 After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.