Last week we were at Corban College where I was given the opportunity to share some of my story with a Women in Ministries Class. I wasn’t sure what to share of the 21 years of our missional journey. I felt led to share the need to develop a Theology of Suffering as it was years before I realized how devastating the world can be when one does not know how to deal with all the suffering we encounter. Often we deal with it by thinking that God must be either angry, very mean and nasty or that He just does not care. Thus the need to study how the Bible reveals God in this area of a suffering humanity. I happen to believe the stories in the Bible are there to help us know God. He reveals Himself by how He relates to us as broken human beings. I believe the stories are true and historic. I also believe we need to focus on understanding the relationships as they are portrayed in Scripture.
I decided to start reading from the beginning of the Book and take a serious look at suffering and how God interacts with people in their suffering. This is what I discovered this morning.
Genesis 16
Hagar’s Story
(The story opens after the LORD has promised Abram a child in his old age.)
Such an intriguing story! Sarai, Abram’s wife, decidedly took things into her own hands. Impatience? Rebellion? Fear that the promise was impossible considering she was past childbearing? She stated, “Perhaps I can build a family through her.” Her, being Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian maidservant. Abram agreed to the plot. Hagar became pregnant and despised Sarai. Did Hagar willingly take 86 year old Abram to her bed? We are not told. But I imagine she was not given a choice. Hagar apparently became arrogant and disdained her mistress under the circumstances. Sarai in turn blamed Abram for her suffering. She even called on God to judge between her and Abram. Did Abram take Hagar’s side at first? Perhaps he was elated that Hagar was going to give Sarai and him a child, as was the initial plan. But, oh, the fickleness of Sarai, he must have thought. Abram, nonetheless, allowed Sarai in her peevishness and pain to mistreat Hagar so much so that Hagar sought to escape.
The Angel of the LORD found Hagar in the desert. Was she attempting to go home to her family in Egypt? We are not told. But my guess is she was. The Angel of the LORD pursued Hagar and invited her into a conversation. Amazing! The Angel of the LORD asked where she was coming from and where she was going. Hagar’s answer was simply that she was running away, not where she was going. Perhaps she had little or no hope of reaching Egypt alone as she headed into the desert. The Angel of the LORD told her to return to Sarai and to submit to her—then He promised Hagar the same thing He promised Abram (Gen. 15:5). But unlike the promise to Abram, that all peoples on earth would be blessed through him, the promise to Hagar regarding her son was that Ishmael (the name given by the Angel of the LORD meaning “God hears”) would be a wild donkey of a man; and that he would live in hostility with all his brothers. Hagar actually named the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me” and she stated, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
What an incredible story of God’s mercy, of God’s compassion for a desperate, marginalized, outcast, woman. A woman suffering the effects of the sin of others and of her own pride. A woman who had no power over her own situation. Thus Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram named his son, Ishmael. It seems obvious Hagar humbled herself and returned to Abram and Sarai. She must have told of her encounter with the Living God on the road to Egypt at the spring that is beside the road to Shur. The most poignant point of the story , in my view, is when the LORD told Hagar, “You shall name him (the child) Ishmael, for the Lord heard of your misery.
I am reminded that God sees us and hears us in our suffering. He does not always choose to do what we want Him to do to change the circumstances. But He does do what I believe is the most amazing thing. He comes alongside us and walks with us through it. Jeff and I were talking about this at lunch today. How often in the Scripture are we reassured that God is with us! Over and over it is written.
And as followers of His, I believe that is what He wants us to do for others. We cannot often fix what is broken, but we can walk with one another through times of suffering.
