God's love

Michelle: I have a special treat for you today. My daughter, Megan, she's my middle kid. She's not really a kid. She's my 22-year-old. She is absolutely in love with God's word. She often is asked to preach at different church opportunities, whether it's for college or for youth, and one of the topics she was talking about recently with me was just so encouraging. I was like, Megan, would you please come on the podcast to talk to my listeners about this? Because it was just so perfect for mental health for Christian women.

So today Megan is going to join us and talk about this, but here's the issue...is it Hagar or Hagar, Megan?

Megan: I don't know. I think it's Hagar. That's how I say it. So that's what we're going to do for the rest of the podcast. And if you know that it's actually not, just pretend that we're saying it. Right.

Michelle: Yeah, just ignore us and fill it in. Whatever you want to call her. Haggie. Haggie.

Megan: Oh, dear.

Michelle: Okay. All right, never mind. All right, so we're going to talk about Hagar in Genesis: Chapter 16. So, if you do want to refer to your Bible for this, this is the story in Genesis 16. So, Megan, why don't you tell us what it is overall that you get the most from this message?

Megan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, first, thanks for having me on. This is really fun.

Michelle: You're welcome.

Megan: Yeah, so I love this message, and I have taught this passage multiple times because I always come back to it. One of the things that I love is just even broad picture, not even yet into the details of the story, though I love the details of the story is how it shows God's heart for his people. Because I used to read the Bible, and I used to read it like, okay, these are the good guys and these are the bad guys, and this is what's happening. And then it was really challenging. As I started reading it, I was like, all of the "good" guys are doing really messed up things. Like, this doesn't make sense. And the story of Hagar is kind of a sad one, at least to start out. It's Abraham and Sarah are married, and they have received a promise from God that they're to have children that are the nations', and yet they're older in age, they're barren, they haven't had any kids yet, and so what happens is they start to doubt the promise, and they're like, well, maybe we didn't understand God. Maybe we need to take it kind of into our own hands a little bit. As much as it's easy to read it and be like, oh, man, why are they doing that? I can see times in my life where I've done the same thing, where it's like one question leads to another. And it starts going from like, oh, did I hear God right to like, oh, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I need to do more. And so, Sarah says, hey, you go into my servant Hagar, and if you have a kid with her, that'll be like, it's a kid from us. She'll be my proxy on my behalf.

Michelle: So, she tried to fix it?

Megan: Yeah, she tried to fix it, and Hagar was a slave. She didn't have any choice in the matter, you know? And so, it's kind of this really sad story if you're just looking at the front end of it and you're like, okay, this is interesting. What does this mean? And so, it says that (and this is before he was Abraham) so Abram took Hagar, the Egyptian and Sarah's servant, and went in and she conceived and then it says when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on contempt on her mistress. And so, it's this back-and-forth thing. And I won't read the whole thing. But it's like Hagar gets a big head and starts kind of like, oh, I'm like, better than Sarah. And then Sarah looks at her and is like, oh, actually, even though I'm the one who caused this, this is awful. Abraham, you have to go send her out into the wilderness. And it's like, bro, there's so much going on here, but one of the things that I love is the way that God continues to use these people that are broken and imperfect and certainly not the heroes of the story. And what I've discovered in reading the Word and falling in love with the Word is it's not really about the people in the Bible being the heroes. It's that God is the hero, and he is the one coming to save us.

Michelle: So, it's all people who are either doing well or doing stuff that's messed up, but basically just people being people.

Megan: Yeah. And that's way more relatable for us to look at and say, oh, right, I am the people being people and making mistakes and stumbling through this life. I'm not the hero of the story. God's the hero of the story, and He's coming in to give me new life. So, that's kind of like a broader picture of why I love the story. But there's so many more details we can go into, too.

Michelle: Okay. So, there's this pain that is in Sarah and in Hagar. Right? So, the pains that they both have. One being, I want to be having this promise for Sarah. I want to be the one know is part of this promise. And then I need to make it happen. And then, wait a minute, the way I went about it, actually, I don't like it. And then the other person going, I had no choice in this. And now I don't like it either, except I do in the sense that at least I get some sort of power. But ultimately it didn't go so great for Hagar. Right?

Megan: Yeah. So, it's this back and forth, like you said, definitely a pain point there. And so, this is where we get into the meat of it. So, I'm going to share I love it! But Hagar is an Egyptian slave, so she's not even a part of their faith, no real reason to be used by God or seen by God, doesn't believe in God that we know of and is in this situation that she didn't ask to be in. And so, when we get to this point, she's now pregnant with Abram's kid. And let's see where it starts up. Abram said to Sarah, behold, your servant is in your power do to her as you please. Then Sarah dealt harshly with her and she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur, and said, Hagar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I am fleeing from my mistress Sarah. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit to her. The angel of the Lord also said to her I will surely multiply your offspring, so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you are pregnant, and you shall bear a son, and you shall name him Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man. His hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all of his kinsmen. So, she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You are a God-of-Seeing, for she said, truly here I have seen Him who looks after me. Therefore, the well was called (Beer Lahai Roi. Oh, I don't know how to say that. You guys can read it. It lies between Kadesh and Barad. And Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram called the name of his Son, whom Hagar had borne Ishmael. And so, I'm going to jump back into some of that, but she ends up running into the wilderness. And her solution is, I'm just running away. I didn't ask to be here. I don't know what's going on now. She's pregnant.

Michelle: She didn't have any power right now.

Megan: No. And she didn't have any power before. She's pregnant now. She's in the wilderness alone, pregnant, trying to figure this all out. Yeah. And it's the coolest thing, because when she gets to the wilderness, God meets her there. And it's like she is the last person that you would expect to find for God to be pursuing. It's like she wasn't even the legitimate one who's supposed to be having the kid of the promise. She's not part of the faith. She's a woman, which at that time, women didn't have nearly as many rights and weren't seen as valuable as men. And so, it's just like there is no reason in human.

Michelle: She basically had no currency for it to matter.

Megan: And she was probably used to not mattering to people. She was probably very used to being overlooked, overseen. She probably wasn't really even seen until Sarah's like, hey, come have this kid. And then she gets punished for having this kid. So, she's just in this cycle and she gets to the wilderness and then God meets her there. And I love, He calls her by name and asks this simple question, and this is what I've preached on and come back to in my own life multiple times. Where have you come from and where are you going? I can just hear the compassion in his voice saying, where have you come from and where are you going? And so often in our lives, I think that we need to ask ourselves that because he's asking a directional question. And it's like, He found her in the wilderness. He knows where she is. He's not asking for Him to know, but He's asking because she needs to answer it. So often in our lives, we know where we're coming from, but we don't know where we're going. Like, she was in the wilderness. She probably didn't have much of a path forward. She just knew, I'm going away from that. And yet He connects these two things saying, where you have come from is directly connected to where you're going. And so, in my life, I have seen that. Where it's like, well, where have you come from? And it's like, well, social anxiety and shame and fear and all of these things. And it's like, where are you going? And it's like, oh, that where I've come from determines where I'm going. And it's like, now I go into different situations, and I go with a boldness to be able to speak to the people that were where I was.

Michelle: Yeah

Megan: I see you do that with your counseling, with all the things that you have learned in the mental health field and all of those, like, where have I come from? Someone who's experienced trauma. Where am I going? Someone who leads other people out of trauma. And so, it's a directional question of like, okay, let's assess where you've been, where you're going, what's happening? And she answers honestly. And then it's kind of surprising, because He says, go back. And you're probably like, why would you do that? Things were bad over there. Why would you do that? But He had a different story to tell, and it wasn't finished. If she didn't go back and have Ishmael there, even in the grand scheme of the whole Bible that we are still reading these stories today, it mattered that she went back. But she doesn't say, why the heck are you doing that? Her response is immediately, you are a God-of-seeing. Truly, I have seen Him who looks after me. And you could hear the delight in her voice, too. And that's because she was not seen over and over and over again. She was overlooked. She wasn't the person that people noticed. She wasn't the person that mattered in the story, she wasn't someone that should have even gotten airtime in the story if things had, "gone how they were supposed to," and yet He stops and He sees her and He calls her by name.

Michelle: There's no one that is inconsequential.

Megan: Yeah, not to God. He's an infinite God. So, it's like, yeah, He will meet you in your wilderness space. He will meet you when you're running from things. He will meet you when you're the last, the least, and the person that shouldn't be brought up, He's there to see you. And it's so beautiful because not only does He see her, but then it's this story of this woman who is the last in the least who should not have had any reason to believe in God or have relationship with God or be chosen by God, is the first person in the Bible to give Him a name. You are the God-of-Seeing.

Michelle: In the whole Bible?

Megan: In the whole Bible, that's the first person to give Him a name. And you're like, that should be reserved for, like, Abraham or like, Moses or like someone that we know of is born in this and it's this woman who wasn't even supposed to be in the story and shouldn't have really been called out.

Michelle: And yet God had her as a part of the story.

Megan: And yet the story God was telling directly wanted her there and had her there and said, you get to give Me the first name. You get to be the one that calls Me that.

Michelle: And repeat that. What did she call him again?

Megan: The God-of-Seeing.

Michelle: The God-of-Seeing.

Megan: And some other translations say it The God-Who-Sees-Me.

Michelle: The God-Who-Sees-Me.

Megan: Yeah.

Michelle: That is beautiful, Meg.

Megan: Yeah.

Michelle: I can see why you preach on that.

Megan: Yeah, it's one of my favorites.

Michelle: Yeah. So, if you're listening and you're wondering if God sees you, think about Hagar and how He saw somebody with no social position back in those days, somebody who was a slave, somebody who was used against her will, and somebody who fled to the wilderness. And God did not overlook her. He saw her pain. He saw her need. He saw where she was, and he had a purpose for her and a story for her. And so, if you feel like you need to know where you're going, there is One who sees you and can give you that information just like He did for Hagar.

Megan: Yeah. And then I briefly, will just jump to the kind of end of Hagar's story. This is Genesis, Chapter 21. After the birth of Isaac, and Sarah looks at Hagar, and it says that she looks at Ishmael, her son, and that he was laughing. And that's literally all that it says. And so, it doesn't give us any context. Like, was he laughing? Because he's like, oh, I was born first. And that's whatever. Was he a kid who's like, we have no context, but we know that whatever it was Sarah saw, she then goes to Abraham and is like, you have to cast out this slave woman with her son. They can't be here with me and my son. And it's like it's just too painful. It reminds her of her mistakes and the areas that she been in. And so, she's like, you have to send them out. And it displeased Abraham, but God said to Abraham, do not be displeased because of the boy. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you. For through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also because he is your offspring. And so, one God already made a promise to imperfect people, and He is keeping up His end of the bargain, even though they're trying to take it into their own hands. But then He doubles down, and He gives a promise to the illegitimate heir. To the other woman and child and says, like, no, you're also going to have offspring that multiplies because I made a word, and I won't be unfaithful to my word. And so, He's like, that applies to you, too. And so, they end up being sent out into the wilderness again. And I think it's amazing that her story bookends in the wilderness. And the wilderness can be such a place of dry. There's nothing there. Nothing's coming up out of it. And it can be a place of God. Do you see me? Even just like by my needs: are my needs being met? Do I have what I need? Do you see me? And so, she ends up back here again, and they run out of water, so she put the child under one of the bushes. She went and sat down opposite him a good way off and said to God, let me not look on the death of my child, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy, where he is up lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. And it's just beautiful to me that it starts off with the revelation of this is the God who sees and then for her son, it ends up being, this is the God who hears. This is the God who hears us when we're in pain, who comes to see us, who comes to rescue us. And the story that maybe didn't even make sense in chapter 16 of why would she go back to that place and what was going on there? Then in chapter 21, He does release her to go, to leave that place and to not be in the place where the pain has been and gives her a new story with her son and a new life. And it's beautiful because it's giving glory to God in the place that He is and at the timing that He wanted it to be. And so, I think it's also beautiful for when you're in the middle of a story and maybe you felt unseen and then God shows up and He speaks to you and you're like, oh, my gosh, I am seen. But then that doesn't mean that life immediately after makes sense. And you're like, man, I still feel like I'm being unseen by the people. I still feel like I'm being stepped over for things. I still feel like I'm not being taken care of, or my needs aren't being met. And it's like, what's going on? Like, God, you just told me you see me, and it feels like I just went right back to the same place. But if you jump ahead a few chapters, the story wasn't finished yet. And so, for the people listening, that You're feeling like the one who isn't seen, I'm telling you, God sees you. God hears you. He calls you by name. He has a story for you that is good. And the story isn't finished yet. And so don't give up too soon. She was ready to call it quits. And to just say, okay, I'm going to die. I can't bear to see my son die. And God came in and said, no, your story is not ending in death. Like, that's not where I'm leaving you. And so let me encourage you, don't give up too soon on the story that God is telling in your life because He is going to do more than you could possibly imagine, that there were multitudes of generations that came after her that she couldn't see in the moment. And so just because you feel unseen and just because the future is unseen doesn't mean that there isn't still a God who sees you and a God who knows the path that He's carving out for you.

Michelle: I love that. I love that. And the thing that came up to me, as you were saying that is now these are the places that in modern day are having conflict. Right? Like, there's a lot of conflict there. And so, the tendency might be from different points of view to view one portion of things that are like, as if, okay, here's the label. Here are these people or these other people, and they're bad, or the other side's bad or who's doing what. And I think it's really important in what you're saying that God sees the people. He sees the people. It's not about this side or that side or people being perfect or things being great. It's about God sees individuals. And if individuals call out to Him, He sees and He hears. And that's when amazing things can happen, because people in and of ourselves, end up doing some stuff that ends up hurting other people and hurts ourselves and things like that. But God cares about each person's individual story. And so, it isn't about sides. It's about you reaching out to Me because I see you, I hear you, I love you, I have purpose for you. I have good for you. You're not alone.

Megan: Yeah.

Michelle: Anything else? That sounded kind of profound there.

Megan: You added more profound things on top of it.

Michelle: Well, I don't know that we can say more. I think it's just that's who God is. And when we focus on who God is in these stories of scripture that don't make sense about He is always love, He is always for what's right and what's good. And I just was reading something about, I think it was Einstein that was saying how there is no cold, it's just the absence of heat and there is no dark. It's the absence of light. And that's the same thing that he was saying with God. It's not that God created evil. It's that without God, evil is what you have. It's like having darkness without light. God is light. God is love. And so, if anything is dark, it's because it's not seeking or doing according to the light of God and who God is, because God is love. And so, if you have a skewed version of how God feels about you, I want you to remember that there was this slave a long time ago that God saw and her son that He heard. Thanks so much, Meg.

Megan: Absolutely.

Michelle: All right, take care, everybody. Bye-bye.

 

If you've ever felt like you're doing the same old thing over and over, falling back into the same patterns, not moving forward and that you'll never be able to get the life you really want to live or that this mental health journey is too hard, I want to share something that came up in one of my recent sessions.

This analogy came to me of a cookie placed on the kitchen table, and the child says to the parent, "I wanna cookie," and the parent says, "OK, I've given you a cookie." The child then says, "I want a cookie, how come I can't have a cookie, why aren't you listening to me, why aren't you giving me what I want?" The parent already gave the child the cookie as it's on the table, but the child has to simply go over, pick it up, and then eat the cookie. It's already been provided, but the child needs to act on it. The child may not see that it's easily accessible that it is already there. That's how we are when we think why isn't God just cleaning up this mess, why am I still stuck having this same old feeling like I'm never going to get it right, never get out this, and will never be done with this journey.

Often times, it's because you aren't picking up the cookie, and sometimes the cookies come in the form of scriptural truth like reading your Bible and time with the Lord and the direction of the Holy Spirit, so pray, reflect, and seek good counsel and teaching. 

Sometimes it comes from taking an action (like reaching out for the cookie) when we stop listening to the feelings and instead, look at the facts. The fact is God is who He says He is! If you are a Christian, you believe God is God. He is the source of everything and all truth: 

Every good and perfect gift comes from God, and these truths don't change whether you feel they are true or not. Whether you feel it or not, you get to choose to take action, to believe it, to reach out to it, and to grab it, and to find ways to make it yours just like the child grabbing the cookie off the table. The cookie is already allowed, and it's already freely provided, but we have to do something with it.

In the Bible, there's a parable of three men who were given money. One didn't do anything and hid it for safekeeping, another got a small return for it, and the last man really invested and received a big return for it. God gives these men a choice as to what to do with what they've been given. 

Just like us, we can watch what God has given us grow into something healthy or we can bury it and not let it grow into what it could be. Sometimes the lie is that we think we're stuck when we're not stuck; we think we will never get out of it, but we're already free. God has already given us the power to do all things through Christ who gives us strength. We can reach out and take our power back!  We mustn't let the enemy steal it by listening to the lies making us think feelings are facts.

You can seek out the skills, tools, and help you need to take the next step and take good care of yourself. You can identify negative or limiting beliefs and place them up against God's truth and His word. You have power in Christ Jesus and his gifts are right there on the table just like the cookie!

You get to accept His gifts and choose how you accept them just like that child could go over and get that cookie from the table! The child could go get that cookie while doing a cartwheel, he could eat that cookie while standing on his head, he could ask his sister to go bring him a cookie, he could slide a piece of paper under it and slide it over to himself. 

So, if you feel like nothing's changing, that's a lie because you can change right now by telling yourself the truth! You can say to yourself, "oh that's just a negative mindset," "oh, that's just a lie," and although you may not feel it right away, the truth is the truth!

Most importantly, don't believe the lie when Satan tells you that you are stuck or moving backward. Believe the truth, take back your power, and take the next right step. When we take steps in a positive direction, just one at a time, we are still doing something to move forward. Just keep taking the next step and sometimes the next step is a good nap, a good vacation, or telling somebody your deepest, darkest secret as long as they're a safe person. Maybe you don't tell it all at once; maybe just say it a little bit at a time to see if they're safe with your confidence.

You can steward this process as God gives good gifts to his children, so take your next step not based on feeling, but based on who God is and who you are in Him.