February 17, 2017
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

God Is At Work

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Opening Prayer

Loving Father, I come to You in weakness and smallness, so that I may be open to Your might and glory.

Read Genesis 16

[1] Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; [2] so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. [3] So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. [4] He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. [5] Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.” [6] “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. [7] The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. [8] And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. [9] Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” [10] The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” [11] The angel of the LORD also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. [12] He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” [13] She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” [14] That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. [15] So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. [16] Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea” (F. W. Faber, 1814–1863).

Packed into six verses is a vivid account of emotionally charged decisions and relationships. What takes place matches known contemporary practices, even obligations, and the three participants each exhibit a mixture of admirable motives and questionable behavior. God is at work then and now through the messy relationships of imperfect people! Unexpected is God’s interaction with fleeing Hagar (7–14). This “Egyptian slave” (1) experiences so many positive biblical firsts: the first time an “angel of the Lord” appears to someone and the first woman, other than Eve, whom God directly addresses (7); the first promise of a specific successful birth, with sex and name announced (and more children promised); the first time God responds to “misery” (11; Exod. 3:7; 1 Sam. 1:10,11; Psa. 34:6); and the only person to give a name to God (13). Further, although Hagar has fled from being “mistreated” (6; the word used of Israelite slaves in Egypt, 15:13), she obeys the command to “go back… and submit” (9), a “divine word of terror to an abused, yet courageous, woman” (Phyllis Trible). Is she now trusting the God who has heard her and seen her? It appears that Abraham at this time saw Ishmael as the fulfillment of God’s promise (15; compare 17:18–21). Certainly he would have heard Hagar’s account. Significantly, throughout the Scriptures “there are no records of any conflict between the descendants of Ishmael and the children of Israel” (John Hartley). We read this account today in a world of tensions involving Jews, Christians and Muslims (who trace their origins to Ishmael). Attitudes to Muslims vary (as did those of Sarah and Abraham to Hagar), but our task is to follow God’s attitude and actions. The covenant line may go through Isaac (17:20,21), but before that distinction is made we know that Ishmael’s “descendants will certainly be among the ‘all nations’ that will be blessed through Abraham” (Christopher Wright).

Apply

As a descendant of Abraham (Gal. 3:7; 1 John 3:1), how might you God’s care for the descendants of Hagar?

Closing prayer

God of All Nations, I find it so easy to withdraw from those who different from me. I need Your grace to help me become a facilitator of understanding and a shaper of peace.

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