Chosen
Background Story: Abram (renamed Abraham) was called by God to leave his home and go where God would show him. God promised He would make him a great nation even though Abram had no children. After time had passed, Abram’s wife Sarai (renamed Sarah) became discouraged that she hadn’t become pregnant and convinced Abram to have a baby with her slave, Hagar.
Read Genesis 16
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
11 The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
13 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
Big Idea: You’re chosen and seen by God.
Hagar was an Egyptian slave that was gifted to Sarai by the Pharaoh when they were in Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20). Once in Sarai’s service, Hagar was gifted to Abraham by Sarai to bear him a child. Hagar’s life was never her own. She never got to decide what she wanted. She never got to be the star in her own story. She wasn’t the beautiful Sarai chosen by Pharaoh or Abraham. She was an afterthought.
But she wasn’t an afterthought to God. In her pain, trials, and heartache, God sought her out in the desert. He didn’t go to her master, Sarai and have her relay His thoughts to Hagar. He went straight to her, in the middle of her wilderness, to let her know she was noticed, seen, and loved by Him.
Maybe you’ve grown up like Hagar. Maybe you feel invisible and not the main character of your story. But there is a God who sees YOU! He created and designed you especially for Him. He says, “You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you” (Song of Solomon 4:7). You are chosen, first, and the joy of His heart. In Him, you will find the love and significance your heart is longing for. Look up today dear one, and see the One who sees you.
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Similar Devotions: An Encounter At The Well, Not A Typo, Heard, Why Am I Here?, My Reflection In The Mirror, My Identity