Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 16 verses 7 through 10, and 13:
7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ 9The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ 10The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’
13So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’ for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive?”
God sees. That is what is said to Moses at the Burning Bush about the Israelites. God has seen their suffering.
I don’t know why slavery was and is allowed to exist for so long. Lincoln said something about it’s inevitable evil in second Inaugural. And I don’t know why God the seer couldn’t or wouldn’t help the slave Hagar further emancipate herself from Abraham’s and Sarah’s bondage.
But I do know this, God saw this tired and worn out pregnant woman in the desert. And she saw God. And the vision gave her the strength and the courage to go on living.
And that, for now, was miracle enough for her to stay alive, and her baby to be born, and us to know that as Zora Neal Hurston said, “Their eyes were watching God,” and God’s eyes were watching them.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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