Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. Genesis 16:2

Thou God seest me. Genesis 16:13

The story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar is quite repugnant to modern society. Here was a married man, whose wife gave him her slave to sleep with so that they could have a child, as the wife could not have children. Scripture gives no indication that Hagar was consulted or even agreed to this plan. In fact, it appears to imply the opposite. Scripture says that Sarah took her slave and gave her to Abraham, as if Hagar was a mere commodity rather than a person made in the image of God with all the dignity that that entails.

Abraham and Sarah were chosen by God to be the couple whose descendants would become the nation of Israel, and eventually the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come from this very family. But as they got older, and no child had been born to them, Sarah took matters into her own hand. The long, long wait for a child of her own had perhaps worn her faith down. She decided that Abraham would have a son and heir one way or another. Poor Hagar was the” other” way. A slave had no rights. She was given to Abraham and he took her and slept with her.

When she found out that she was pregnant she became disrespectful to Sarah. Who could blame her? This was the only thing she had that Sarah didn’t. Sarah, the rich free wife of the great master Abraham could not have children, but her poor lowly slave who had nothing to call her own was going to have his child. Her attitude angered Sarah to the extent that Hagar ran away to wander in the wilderness alone.

What a mess humanity makes of life! God’s chosen people still have feet of clay. They can still be ruled by their passions and their own reasoning, but when they do, they make a mess and people get damaged in the process.

But God is the God of love for all people; even a lowly slave like Hagar. God appeared to her and spoke to her. Isn’t that amazing. God had not spoken to Sarah up to this point. He had spoken to Abraham, but not to his wife. The only words that God ever spoke to Sarah were words of rebuke when He reprimanded her for denying that she laughed in disbelief when He told Abraham that she would bear him a son in her old age. Yet here was God speaking directly to Sarah’s mistreated slave.

People may treat us shamefully, but God never does. God had compassion on Hagar. He met her in the wilderness and promised that she too would have descendants that could not be numbered. He told her that her son was to be called Ishmael, which means “God shall hear”. Imagine that! Every time she mentioned her son’s name, she was reminded that God is the God who hears the distress of even the most downtrodden and despised of people.

Unlike Sarah, Hagar believed all that God had spoken to her. We see this in her obedience to His command to go back and serve Sarah again. She was not to act in a prideful way because she was able to have children while Sarah was not, but was to return and obey her again as a slave was expected to. She was the slave who knew that God had heard her and so she obeyed His instructions for her life. Sarah, the rich wife of a well-respected man who conversed with God, doubted His promise would be fulfilled, and even laughed at the thought of it happening.

Our position in life does not determine God’s love for us. We may be downtrodden, abused and rejected, yet like Hagar, when we are lost in the wilderness of life God sees and God hears our cry and He will answer our cry for salvation.