And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” (Genesis 16:8-9. ESV)
“Where are you going?” We have all asked that question in one way or another about the flight of our golf ball. And we usually ask it in the context of disappointment or disgust.
Our intention and our execution simply did not match. We lined it up down the left side of the fairway and intended to peel it back toward the center. A power fade was the goal.
Alas, the fairway bunker was our aim point, but we double-crossed ourselves, and the ball wound up left of left, in the deep forest where Hobbits live.
We blurt out, “Where are you going?” If you are playing with close friends, some chuckle, others make a sarcastic remark, adding insult to injury. We all know that nothing we say will alter the direction and outcome. But we blurt it out anyway?
Many times, we bookend this question, “Where are you going?” with colorful self-talk, front-loading it with: “You idiot, where are you going?” Or back loading it with: “#@*%^.” Whatever the outcome, we know that once that ball leaves the club face, a “spot of bother” awaits.
The story of Abraham [Abram], Sarah [Sarai], and Hagar deserves our sustained attention. Understanding God’s relationship with Abraham is foundational to grasping God’s character, the central place of biblical covenants, the truth of grace, the importance of faith, and the person of Jesus—“the seed [offspring] of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1; John 8:31-47; Galatians 3:16; Romans 4).
Abram and Sarai had been promised a “seed,” a covenant son through whom God would accomplish many things. Abram and Sarai were growing old, and Sarai began to worry that the promise was in jeopardy.
So Sarai took matters into her own hands and told Abram to sleep with Hagar, their Egyptian servant. After Hagar conceived, Sarai despised and mistreated her servant, then banished her from the clan.
Hagar is pregnant, on her own, on the run, desperate and despairing. In her flight, she rests by a spring of water and unexpectedly meets the “angel of the Lord” [many scholars believe this is the pre-incarnate Jesus].
Jesus asks her, “…where are you going?” Jesus implies that Hagar is headed in the wrong direction. Jesus, then, rerouted her back to Abram and Sarai.
In her encounter with Jesus, the Lord makes promises regarding her future son. In that moment, Hagar learns a knee-buckling, life-altering truth— “God sees her!”
Strikingly, we find that Hagar, an Egyptian servant, pregnant and alone, is the first person in Scripture to name God—she calls him “‘El Roi,’ the God who sees me” (v. 13).
In that pivotal moment of rescue, Hagar cries out, “Truly I have seen him who sees me.” Sadly, so many men and women spend their lives desperate for someone—anyone—to “see them and care.”
While many dysfunctions in our lives call for more comprehensive diagnoses, fundamentally, we are desperate for someone to notice, pay attention, and truly care for us.
Every one of us needs recognition and affirmation. When we fail to see the God who sees and cares for us, we rush headlong into all sorts of behavior in search of someone to notice us, only to discover that it is, at best, a placebo.
To have that profound awareness that God sees you—really sees you and cares for you—and that he will redirect your life toward the path meant for his glory and your good is the only journey worth taking.
Follow him and live a productive [fruitful] life!
Prayer: Lord! Open my eyes to see you seeing me.