Genesis 16
7 Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”
9 The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.” 10 Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.” 11 And the Angel of the Lord said to her:
“Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has heard your affliction. 12 He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
13 Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”
The angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar. This is the first time we read of the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament specifically the angel of the Lord is referred to as having a divine nature. He is holy as God is holy. It is believed that He is the Lord Jesus revealing Himself to man. He has always been. When the Pharisees accused Jesus, He said, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day”, and, “before Abraham was, I am”.
Sarah took the matter of her barrenness into her own hands and handed her handmaid to her husband as wife. It’s a cursed thing for people not to be able to wait upon God. When Hagar saw that she conceived she despised her mistress, and Sarah suffered. She blamed Abraham and Hagar for her suffering which she brought upon herself. But Abraham told her that it’s her slave and it was her idea, so she should do what she thinks best. So Sarah made life impossibly difficult for Hagar. Hagar was also haughty, obstinate and irritated. She couldn’t bear it being treated in the way Sarah treated her. Eventually she decided to run away from the situation. She was driven by these hellish things. She left as a mad person – a young, pregnant woman travelling through a dry and inhospitable desert. She so to say committed suicide. If the Lord hadn’t met her and brought her back to sanity, she would’ve died on that road.
The angel of the Lord told her that she would bear a son, who would be like a wild donkey, uncontrollable. (When you as a woman are with child, your behaviour influences your child.) As she was uncontrollable, so too was the son she bore – his hand against everyone and everyone against him. Today we still see it.
Hagar felt that she was treated unfairly. However, even if you feel like a slave, you still have absolutely no right to forsake God’s calling for you. There’s no future for a person who forgets where he/she came from. There will also be no future for you, unless your past have been sorted out.
You may say, the past is the past and I’ll just forget that – I’m going forward. But unless you’ve sorted out your past, there will be no future.
When the Samaritan woman asked Jesus for the Living Waters He told her to call her husband. He brought to light that she had had five husbands and was currently just living together with another man.
Hebrews 4
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
If you want God’s best for the future, sort out your past in God’s light.