Life is meant to be lived one day at a time.

The Israelites discovered this when they were in the wilderness. God provided manna for them to eat, but this manna had to be collected and consumed on a daily basis. If they tried to conserve it, maggots appeared and it became inedible. (Ex 16:19-20) Only when the Sabbath was approaching did the manna last. On the sixth day, they collected twice as much and it did not stink or get maggots in it. (Ex 16:22-25) Similarly, Jesus taught his disciples to ask God to give ‘daily bread’. (Matt 6:11) We are not meant to live in such a way that we can survive without God’s provision and protection. Instead, we are called to live in daily dependence and trust and to heed His command to keep the Sabbath.

Most of us glimpse something of this daily recharging through products that have rechargeable batteries: mobile phones, tablets, Kindles and so on. A smartphone used throughout the day usually needs charging by the evening. We too need to learn to live in constant communion with the Lord. We need to be filled daily with His Spirit (Eph 5:18-20) and then need to give to others out of His provision.

It goes against our sinful natures to live in daily dependence. We prefer to run our own lives and spend an enormous amount of time fretting about the past or worrying about the future. The antidote to this is daily dependence and faith in a loving, powerful Father. A child has the gift of living in the present, rising each mornig with enthusiasm and vigour. We too need to learn the art of this daily trust.

“I won’t fear what tomorrow brings.

With each morning, I’ll rise and sing.

My God’s love will lead me through.

You are the peace in my troubled sea.” (“My Lighthouse”, Rend Collective)

There are a number of fun days coming up in the half-term holidays in our area.

Tuesday 19th February (11 a.m. – 2 p.m.) at St Helen’s Church Hall in Thurnscoe.

Wednesday 20th February (10 a.m. – 1 p.m.) at GPCC, the ‘Churches Together’ Family Fun Day, exploring the theme of new life through caterpillars, butterflies and cooking!

Thursday 21st February (11 a.m. – 2 p.m.) at Furlong Road Methodist Church.

On Sunday 24th February at 8 p.m., there will be a special service at the Salvation Army in Goldthorpe, with a production called ‘The Well’ being put on there.

We had two more birthdays to celebrate last night.

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.

Beer Lahai Roi was not the only well of significance in Hagar’s life. In Genesis 21, we read of another well at Beersheba, of another encounter with God during desperate times.

Some fourteen years after Ishmael’s birth, the promised son, Isaac, was born to Abraham and Sarah. (Gen 21:1-4) Ishmael did not find it easy to cope with this change of events and Sarah was once again zealous in her protection of her beloved son, once again demanding that Abraham dealt with the problem. Hagar found herself banished to the desert with ‘some food and a skin of water’ (Gen 21:14) along with her son.

Despite God’s earlier provision and reassurance, Hagar is left desolate and in despair, unable to watch her son die from lack of water. (Gen 21:15-16) Present pain and suffering drive from us the memory of God’s help in times past and leave us feeling abandoned and without hope. Nonetheless, Hagar encounters God in this most unlikely of places. Once again, she discovers that God has not forgotten her, that He is still capable of seeing her, even if she is in the desert. Once again, God’s word reminds her of His promises to her son. And once again, there is a well of water, there is provision, for her and for her son. (Gen 21:17-19)

It appears that the well was actually there all along; the Bible tells us ‘God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.’ (Gen 21:19) So often, God’s answers are close at hand, but the difficulties of our circumstances and the pain in our heart mean we cannot see them. Nonetheless, Hagar once again discovered key truths about God at Beersheba and both she and Ishmael saw God’s provision and help in very practical ways, for our God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. (Eph 3:18-20)

Beer Lahai Roi, an unusual sounding name for a well, is a well mentioned in Genesis 16, the story of Hagar and Ishmael. It’s the first well mentioned in the Bible, and as with many cases reminds us of the desperate need for water, but also shows us that God-encounters can take place in the most unexpected of places.

Hagar was Sarai’s slave and her involvement in the story of the people of God is a salutary warning that it’s always dangerous to take the pragmatic, practical route when it comes to God’s promises. God had promised Abram and Sarai a son, a son who would be Abram’s heir and through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. (Gen 12:1-3, Gen 15:3-5) However, God was taking a long time to fulfil this promise and so Sarai’s plan was to have a surrogate family through Hagar (Gen 16:2), only to then discover that this plan was not without consequences or problems. She and Abram effectively made Hagar’s life so difficult that Hagar fled.

Life is not always easy. Sometimes we make it more complicated than it need be by our own actions; sometimes, other people’s actions make life difficult for us. Joseph is perhaps the best example we have in the Old Testament of someone who in many senses of the word could be considered a victim of circumstances: beaten up and sold into slavery by his own brothers, thrown into prison because of a scheming, rejected woman and left to languish there because of the forgetfulness of a fellow inmate he had helped. So often, we may find ourselves in circumstances that leave a lot to be desired: we feel like Hagar, alone in a desert, destined to die.

However alone, abandoned and forsaken we may feel, however, we are never beyond the reach of God. The Bible tells us, ‘The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert.’ (Gen 16:7) The words spoken to her by God reassured, comforted and challenged her, but she was never the same again.She realised that God cared about her, not just about Abram and Sarai. She realised that God saw her: ‘You are the God who sees me’, she said. (Gen 16:13) In effect, the desert place became a holy place, and the spring of water there received a new name. She called the well Beer Lahai Roi, which means ‘well of the Living One who sees me.’ (Gen 16:14)

God sees us, knows us, loves us and provides for us. There, in the desert, she found water and also found a God who knew her intimately and cared about her. When we encounter God, we too are changed.