God Sees Us
God is given many names in the Bible, but there is none more lovely than the name Hagar gives to God in Genesis 16:13: ‘You are the God who sees me… I have seen the One who sees me.’ We need to grasp something of the omniscience and omnipresence of God. He sees us. He knows us. Nothing is hidden from His sight. (Hebrews 4:13) Ps 139 reminds us that God knows everything there is to know about us; He watches us daily (see Ps 33:13-15).
God Knows Us
Hagar and Ishmael were not without fault or blame in their situations, but God not only knows us through and through, He loves us unconditionally. Rom 5:8 reminds us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and the book of Hebrews is at pains to show us that Jesus shared in our humanity and knows what it is to suffer. (Heb 4:15) Even if no one else knows or understands what we are going through, Jesus does and walks with us through the pain.
God Works For Us
These incidents also remind us that God is on our side, that He works for us. On both occasions, He helped Hagar. She was not left in the desert to die. Her son wasn’t left in the desert to die. Even though God’s plan was to bless all the nations of the earth through Isaac, the son of promise, He did not forget Hagar or Ishmael. He did not abandon them. He met with them, spoke to them, and revealed the source of living water to them.
God is always working for the good of those who love Him. (Rom 8:28) Paul says, ‘if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?’ (Rom 8:31-32) It can be very hard when we are in the desert to believe that God still has good plans and purposes for us; we may well feel we are abandoned and on the scrap heap. But God is able to work things out; He is able to step into our situations in miraculous ways. Though we may have to wait for His plans to be fulfilled (see Hab 2:3, Ps 27:14), we can be confident that God will provide for us and will work His purposes out in our lives.
