Hagar ran away. You would have, too. She was tired of Sara's taunts and sarcasm. She was tired of no compassion. She was tired of no understanding. She was tired of Sara! So she ran into a desert, a bad idea for a pregnant woman!
Luckily, she found a spring and crumbled to the ground in fatigue, anger, disillusionment, and self-pity. That's where God found her because God sees when no one else is looking.
God sees. He sees the heartache, the confusion, the inequity, the loss. And just like Jesus cried outside the tomb of Lazarus, God grieves for what grieves us. He sees . . . me and you!
We want God to show His power and turn something around, put someone in their place, make something better. God wants to use His power in our hearts, turn us around, help us find where we’re supposed to be, make something better inside us.
When we all we see is a mess, God sees a new place to grow. When all we see is what someone has done to us, God sees what we have done to ourselves. When all we see is no way out, God knows where the opening is.
God sees what we can't or don’t want to see. Before we ask God to “do something,” we need to ask God what He sees so His vision can edit ours.
Be prepared. God will crash our pity party to help us see what He sees—a hurting child who needs His loving arms more than a lecture. God always offers Himself first. When we allow God to love us all the way through our hurt, we can have a new vision about what is next.
God found Hagar in the middle of her desert and He will find us in ours. But He won’t order an Uber to take us back where we came from. He requires us to make the trip on our own. However, a trip back to where God says you belong is not as long a journey as the one that takes you away.
Pictures: Unsplash