Hagar & the God Who Sees
276 | “It's Great After That”
Encounter the God Who Truly Sees
Ever felt like a background character in your own life, reduced to a role or pushed to the edges by someone else’s choices? This week, we’re looking at Hagar — the servant and foreigner who was treated like a shortcut but became the first person in the Bible to encounter the "Angel of the Lord". We explore how God calls us by name when others only see our status, and what it means that He "sees to provide" even in our driest wilderness seasons. From the meaning of Ishmael ("God hears") to the comfort of El Roi ("the God who sees"), we’re finding hope in the truth that God isn't just watching us — He’s looking after us.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: The God who saw Hagar in the wilderness sees and hears us in our wilderness seasons.
This Week's Challenge: Sing “I Am His Child” and enjoy the assurance of his presence.
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Welcome and Hagar Teaser
Bryan: Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Bible Geeks podcast. I'm Bryan Schiele
Ryan: I'm Ryan Joy.
Bryan: and thanks so much everyone for tuning in. Hagar is one of the Bible's most overlooked women. She's a servant, she was a foreigner, and someone who really was pushed to the edges of the story by the failures of a bunch of other people.
Ryan: But in the wilderness, Hagar encounters God, gives Him a name, Elroy, the God. So
Bryan: So today we're gonna tell her story. We're gonna explore the names and the themes that are tied to this cool story and reflect on what it all means that God sees, that God hears, and that God comes near to his people who feel forgotten.
Ryan: if you've ever felt unseen, heard, or reduced to a role, Hagar's story has something powerful to say to you, to me, to all of us.
Draft Update and Regionals
Bryan: Okay, so Ryan, we've drafted our favorite Bible women and we've already made it through round one. And now we've basically been spending a whole week picking round two and hopefully everybody's voted and it's been great. Today, I think we'll be closing round two voting, opening up the Sweet 16 voting here moving forward.
But over these last couple of conversations, we've been talking about kind of our ideas behind these different regionals. And last time, you know, we really talked about the women of valor and I thought that was a great conversation. Not the least of which is because you and I were together. So now we're back.
Ryan: fun.
Bryan: Far away from each other again. But talking
here in this conversation about matriarchs and leaders. So
we're gonna talk about a character who actually was not one of the matriarchs and leaders that we chose. But definitely, she was one of these people who straddled, I guess, both categories.
We actually chose her for women of valor.
Why Hagar Matters
Bryan: So we're talking about Hagar on this episode. And Hagar is- I just- I have to be honest, I love the story of Hagar. Because it's just so- it's so quintessential God. And the way that he deals with outsiders and people who are, I guess, small. But making them into these amazing people who, you know, you just wouldn't expect.
And so Hagar's story is really cool. But we did actually pick her for women of valor. Not for matriarchs and leaders. But although she is both.
Ryan: yeah, we could have picked any of these other figures to focus in on as a matriarch story. But this one is so rich. And I preached this lesson recently, this past Sunday, actually, thinking about, well, it was inspired by Our Lady's Weekend.
They had this workshop where they were talking about spiritual disciplines. And one of the ladies who was leading it requested that on Sunday morning after it, we sing this song, "I Am His Child." And it's a song that talks about God hearing us and God seeing us. And you know, do I have to try so hard just to know that he's near?
And the answer is, of course, praise the Lord, I'm his child. He hears me. He sees me. He knows me. I'm near. And that's what Hagar is all about. And so that's where the lesson was inspired by that. And maybe as we kind of get into a "here's the story" segment, we could start thinking about how we set this story up.
Bryan: so here's the story is definitely important in this- in this role. Because she is such a small character in the Bible. Although, she does get a lot of play because she's up near the beginning of the book of Genesis. So for anyone doing, like, their reading plans, right? They're probably, like, maybe falling off around Leviticus.
So they've probably made it through this story of Hagar here
Ryan: Stick with it, by the way.
Bryan: Oh, for
Ryan: There's great stuff in Leviticus.
I
Bryan: really is great stuff in Leviticus. If you can get past the scaly scabs and all that stuff, it's great after that. But
Ryan: Right.
Genesis 16 Setup
Bryan: Genesis 16 is where this story goes down. And this is still about the time where Abram and Sarai are named Abram and Sarai.
They really haven't gone, you know, into any, like, prominence yet. They're still, like, following God's direction. And boy, Abram and Sarai, like, really have some bad looks in- in this chapter, Genesis 16. They've heard the promise of God that he was gonna, you know, bless their family and everything else. And they're old, and they just don't believe it yet.
So Sarai has this plan, and she decides to take Hagar, her slave, and give her- take her and give her to her husband, as if that's going to somehow shortcut God's great- great plan.
Ryan: It's really interesting, too, that this is echoing in the Genesis language the fall in chapter three. I mean, this really is.
Bryan: and he gave,
Ryan: Yeah. So just as Eve took the fruit and gave the fruit to Adam, and then Adam listened to his wife, it says here, you know, uses those same words, "she took," Hagar is now the fruit that's being handed over, and she gave her, and Abram listened to his wife.
And he even is going to say later on, "She's your servant. Do what is right in your own or what is good in your own eyes." Again, same language. What is good in—it was good in their eyes to eat. And so this is really a picture, first of all, of Sarai not having faith to trust God's way, but kind of crafting or grasping at solving it in her own way.
But Abram does not get off scot-free here either. Just like Adam, he is abdicating his responsibility and just going along with it. And, you know, lesson to men and husbands everywhere about that. And we all have a responsibility in these things. He could have come in and said, "Hey, can we talk about this?
Let's think through how we should handle this." But he doesn't. And so, yeah, this is to start out with not just a family story, but it's a failure of faith story between Abram and Sarai. And then it becomes this story, as we focus in, about this woman that they're just treating as tools. They're just treating as like a—well, they never even use her name.
They call her "slave woman" or "servant" throughout.
Hagar Meets God
Ryan: So then as that goes forward, what stands out to you about the way, as Hagar runs off into the wilderness, that she meets God there and what happens next?
Bryan: Oh, it's so cool. Like, of course, Sarai is just completely jealous, I guess? Or completely turns, you know, her back on her own plan. Like, "This was your plan, okay?" And, you know, she- she becomes completely upset with Hagar, the fact that she can conceive, even though Sarai can't. And so, yeah, she treats her horribly.
And Hagar goes and runs off into the wilderness in the direction of what I think is towards Egypt. So she's heading pretty much back home. Which I also find really interesting, maybe we can talk about, like, she's an Egyptian, and they're oppressing her. But then we see that same theme, you know, take place once the children of Israel become slaves in Egypt.
It's almost like the tables now have turned. Anyway, we get this story, though, of Hagar out in the wilderness. And of the people who get to meet the angel of the Lord first, Hagar, an outsider, is the one who winds up seeing an angel of the Lord first. Which is, like, so cool that the very first- you know, the Genesis is the book of firsts.
And so we see this moment where she meets, you know, God's angel out there in the middle of the wilderness. And he's asking these questions, sort of, you know, the way that God so often does. It's like, "What are you doing? Like, where- where are you going? Where have you come from? Where are you going?" And she's like, "I'm- I'm running away.
I'm- I'm running away from my mistress."
Ryan: I talked about how they don't refer to her by name ever in Genesis 16 or 21. Abram and Sarah don't,
Bryan: Right.
Ryan: but God does.
Bryan: Yes."
Well, and
Ryan: her by
Bryan: he calls her by name.
and in addition to that, I mean, the fact that you say she's out in the wilderness, he wants her to go back home. I mean, the first thing he says is basically, "Turn around. Return to your- to your master and submit to her." And, you know, which doesn't make any sense.
Like, he's not saving her out of that- that condition, but he is sending her back with a promise that "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." Like, this is- this is a promise he's making to her if she will go back and submit to her mistress. So the- the idea there, God knows what's best for her, even though if on the surface it doesn't look like the best situation, she may not understand why she has to go do that.
But also we- we learn in this story, "Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son." Like, get out of the wilderness, Hagar. You know, you don't- you don't need to be out here. You're gonna have a son, and that's sort of where this story is starting to illuminate things for her. She's starting to see some amazing things going on here, but the fact is, like, she is seen by God.
God Sees and Knows
Bryan: And I think that's the most important point of this whole discussion, is that's after everything comes out and- and her plans or, you know, direction is- is called by God, she called on the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," where she said, "Truly, here I have seen him who looks after me."
And so this idea that she's- she's acknowledging that God sees her in a way that no one else has. And that's why I say this is, like, the quintessential story about God dealing with outsiders, because isn't that so much about what God does? He cares about the aliens, he cares about the foreigners, and, you know, why is it important that God calls Hagar by name here in this story?
He sees her, and she, like, totally acknowledges that. "God, you see me, you know what's going on." And how encouraging would that be to anyone else reading this story who wasn't in a position of leadership or authority?
Ryan: Yes. And yes, it's really powerful that basically Moses is telling the story of how the world is going to be redeemed through Abram and Abraham and Sarah, and he stops the whole thing to tell us this slave girl's story. And because it tells us about God, it tells us about, he looks after all of us. We're not numbers to him.
Like, you know, I brought up in the sermon how our world is getting good at scanning. Like we're being detected, our faces, our IDs, our data, our names, but we're not seen. We're not known, right? But God knows us. He sees us. There's a Tim Keller quote that I brought up whenever you were leading a class that talks about how, you know, to be known and not loved is our greatest fear.
Like I get you and I don't like what I see. I know all this stuff about you. And like to be loved but not known is pretty empty. Like yeah, I love you, but I have no idea who you are. That's like distant. But to be fully known, right? Like Hagar is known. Like you and I are known by God. He knew us before we knew him, really.
And yet to be fully loved, that is life-changing. And that's what she starts to discover. And I love that she says not just the God who sees me, but the God who looks after me. You are the one who looks after me. So you have that looking, but it's different than like I'm watching you, which sounds creepy, right?
Like that's not just watching us, or it sounds like a judge, like I'm watching, right? But it's like he is looking at us, seeing us fully with care. He says that God has listened to your affliction. He knows you. He sees you in all of your trouble, in all of your difficulties. And he looks with compassion on that.
And even though Hagar is not the chosen one, even though Hagar is running away from God's favored servant, Abram, he says, "No, I care about you. I see your affliction. You matter to me in your own story. Each of us have our own story that God sees, and we're part of that." And he says to call her son's name Ishmael, which we'll talk about here in a little bit, but because he hears, he sees, he gets it,
Bryan: And this is not the only time we see Hagar in the story.
Genesis 21 Wilderness
Bryan: Of course, you know, Hagar bore Ishmael to Abraham, which you- you were just talking about, but she shows up again in Genesis 21, and it doesn't feel like the story is that much different in- in Genesis 21 as it is here. What- like, what are you seeing as the parallels when we- when we see her pop back up with her and Ishmael?
Ryan: Well, it's a wilderness story again about her going out into the wilderness and meeting God again and coming out with hope and promise.
And so there's this patterning that is a Exodus pattern, that it's Moses' own pattern for his life, right? He goes out into the wilderness and meets God and comes out, and Moses is telling this story and he could probably recognize himself and he understands the wilderness. But the way it happens is now Ishmael is born.
He's growing up. Isaac is born, Sarah's kid, and they're having a conflict and Ishmael's teasing Isaac and Sarah doesn't like it. And so she sends her out. This time, Hagar isn't running away. Sarah sends her out. Abraham loads her up with a bag of water and she goes with the child. And as she's walking out there, she runs out of water and it's like, this is the end.
This is the moment where you are at the end of your rope. And maybe we've all felt to some degree, maybe never as alone and as hopeless as Hagar does in that moment, but we've all kind of felt like, I don't know what to do now. And she just, she can't bear to watch her kid die, sets him under the bush and walks away a little bit of a, like a certain distance, the distance of a bow shot, it says.
And she just weeps, cries out, not a polished prayer, not a, I have the whole formula down, just cries out and then God responds.
Bryan: And isn't it interesting that in both of these stories, Genesis 16, Genesis 21, that there's a well that pops up in both of these stories, and it's like, you know, just this little- little theme here where we see God providing sustenance and life in the middle of what seems to be this chaotic wasteland that she feels like she's in.
And, you know, again, why is God such a help? Why does he provide? Why does he reach out and care for somebody so small like this woman, Hagar? I mean, I don't- I don't think anyone escapes the eyes of God, and God is- is able to bring the well of water out into the wilderness, even if we are such a small character in the story.
And I love these two stories, you know, kind of side by side together, how God sees her, he listens to her.
Heavy Words and Names
Bryan: And so maybe this kind of leads us into a deeper conversation about some of these words that keep popping up, which is maybe a great time for a heavy words segment.
It has been a minute since we've done that little stinger, but, you know, heavy words here. I mean, there are so many. Before we get into the ones that I want to talk about, let's actually talk about Hagar's name itself. What does Hagar's name mean in this story? Because I think it's so insightful, especially, I'm just going to throw it out there, for our political climate today.
What does Hagar's name mean?
Ryan: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. There's, so there's some like discussion about, does it have, if it was a, if it was an Egyptian name as it comes, you know, it could have originally had to do with like a fortress or a stronghold, but, but in Hebrew, the idea has to do with either flight, like running away or it, there's this word that's closely related to Hagar that means stranger, sojourner, immigrant to go with your political idea.
It means somebody who is an outsider,
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: And in the previous chapter, you started to allude to this right before in Genesis 15, in the promise to Abraham, he tells, God tells Abraham, your family, your descendants, they're going to grow, you know, great and everything, but they are going to be sojourners.
They're going to be Hagars basically in a strange land. And that land is going to be Egypt. you can see the reversal that God's going to bring about
Not only is she a slave girl, but she's an outsider. That's even what her name means. She's a stranger. but God sees this, you know, stranger, outsider, distant person and sees the truth of us and loves us and knows us and cares for
Bryan: It is so amazing. Like, when you read through the Torah and you look at all the times when God is talking about the stranger or the alien or the outsider, it is so amazing to me that God is not, like, pushing these people away. Like, he's making provisions for them. He cares about them. He wants his people to care about them as well.
And so what a condemnation of Abram and Sarai to, like, completely push away this foreigner from them and to use her. And like you said, I think you said it really well, like, treat her like a tool. They were. They viewed her as, like, a shortcut or a tool to get to their own purposes. And boy, if that's not a message for today, I don't know what is.
Like, I think we can't live in this world in a way that treats God's images as if they were just, like, cast off, you know, vessels for our own use. Like, that has never been how God wanted us to view each other. So Hagar is such an amazing figure in this story, and her name just calls out to us, like, some lessons from it.
El Roi and Psalm 139
Bryan: But then, really, I think the most important name here in this story is how she refers to God. And she gives God a name, which I think is, I don't, I may be wrong, but like, I can't remember another story where somebody is able to give God a name that, like, sticks, that it becomes a name that he accepts as his own name.
Like, El-Royi is the God who sees, and so she calls him that. And how cool is that, that, like, that totally encapsulates her experience with God, because that is absolutely what we see God doing for her, seeing her, knowing her, and connecting her. And we've been talking about that, I think, already.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, she's definitely the first one to do it. And you think about all the names of God, sometimes we sing songs about it, or we'll do studies of El Shaddai, God, you know, the mighty, mighty God, or God most high, or God, you know, all the different Yahweh, but this name says so much about his character.
And I wanted to ask you actually, because you, you just did this sermon series in, down in Plainfield that I was able to go down and listen to. And I kept thinking, because I had this sermon in the back of my head as you're preaching, and you went to Psalm 139 and you did this whole lesson on, you know, God seeing us and you can't hide from God, basically being open, honest before him and, and how he is the God who sees.
And I wanted to ask you about, you know, Psalm 139, the God who searches and knows us, how does that tie in with this story about the God who sees? What do we get from putting those two
Bryan: well, I mean, David there is asking God to search him and really just, like, shine the light inside of him and reveal what's going on inside of him. But he does that at the end of the psalm, in Psalm 139, he kind of ends there. But he starts by acknowledging the fact that God already sees, he already knows, like, he is fully aware of what David is doing, what's going on with him, and yeah, he calls on him to see and to search.
But the fact is, like, throughout that psalm, it's such a psalm of trust, and to know that God is not a God who searches to destroy, or who searches to, like, tear down. He's not an enemy who's searching us, I think is the point of what he's getting at in that psalm. He is, you know, like a doctor. I actually had a really good conversation with somebody after that Bible class, talking about Psalm 139, and someone was saying, you know, isn't it amazing that we literally pay people money to, like, poke at us, and scan us, and look at us, like, in ways that no one else gets to.
And we pay them to do that, because it's like, you know, we know that they're there to heal us, and how much more should we be willing to have God do that for us? Because God searches us, but not to destroy, he searches us to heal. And so when I think this word is used, this word "seeing," "roi," and another form of that word is "ra'ah," that word, "to see," is also used in Genesis 22, when Abraham is--or Abraham at the time--is offering his son as a sacrifice, and he looks, and he sees that God provides a lamb, that God is the one providing a lamb.
It's that same word, "ra'ah," "to provide." And so it's the fact that God sees to provide, he sees to give, he sees to bless, and to heal, and to make right what is broken. broken and I think that's what Psalm 139 is all about. I think that's what these passages bring up to me is that when God sees, it's always a good day and I don't have to...
you know. I don't know. I don't have to be afraid when I know that God actually wants to create in me something that is better than where it started.
Ryan: that's where, that's where David ends that, as you said, ends that Psalm is it's a prayer for God to search him, like brought up in the lesson. He starts out, "You have searched me and known me," and then he ends, "Search me and
know
Bryan: me.
Ryan: But, but the, but the end of it is like, and, and, "See if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
Show me the way. Take me there." He's not just dismissive of, yeah, God sees. He's not afraid, like Jonah trying to hide or something. He's not afraid of God seeing. He's celebrate, it seems like the Psalm is just such a celebration of what Hagar discovered that, you know, if I go up in the sky, you're there. If I'm in the depths of the sea, if I'm in the grave, you see me.
When I was in my mother's womb, you saw me. You knew all my days before one of them was written. You know me so well. And he's not afraid of it. Like he said, he just, it's good to be known, to be seen, and then to be loved and to know the one who sees and knows all of this is on my side, is able to lead me.
I love your point about providing. I didn't know that about Genesis 22, that that word is used again, which is also where another name of God is given, right? We sometimes sing the song Jehovah Jireh, like Yahweh provides. It's what, like, I think he named the place. Abraham did.
Bryan: Oh. But so
Ryan: provides. Yahweh, God sees.
Just beautiful. We're learning all kinds of Hebrew
Bryan: It's so amazing though, right, because before Abraham does the most amazing thing where he says that God provides, you know, and all of the things. Well before that, Hagar already knew this lesson. Like, Hagar figured it out way
before
Ryan: servant girl over in the corner of the tent that he's ignoring understood the God he's serving.
Bryan: So
Ishmael God Hears
Bryan: let's get into a one more word here maybe and we'll move on, but I think when we get to her son Ishmael, his name means "God hears."
but imagine like calling out to Ishmael and every time you called out your son's name, you were saying, "Hey, come to dinner! God hears!" You know, like just always shouting out your kid's name and having it mean such a cool reminder to your own life.
Like, "Wow, God hears me. He's answered answered me."
Ryan: It's so powerful. It's so powerful. It's like commemorating. Like, we do that with our kids' names, like, you know, Ashlyn Grace, right? You know, I heard you say that several times whenever you guys were here. It's
Bryan: I always use her middle name. It's
Ryan: yeah. Which is a commemoration. You chose that, I know. I've never talked to you about it, but I'm sure.
Just like I chose, you know, Evangeli, and she's like the little gospel teller everywhere. I mean, we go to take her to music lessons, talking to people about, you know, are you a Christian? Do you know about Jesus? And it's like she's bearing the name that means, you know, euangelion, that means good news. And we named her that because of that.
And her middle name is Zoe, you know, the life that Jesus brings. And all of our kids' names have that, you know,
osma or different Hebrew or Greek words at the core of it because we're commemorating what is most important to us. And in the story, first God hears Hagar and says, "He's heard your affliction.
Name your son Ishmael." And then he hears the boy crying out in Genesis 21. He says, "Hey, Ishmael, I've heard your prayer." And then he opens her eyes and she sees the well. She didn't conjure the well. It was there all along. I kind of brought this up in my sermon that the spiritual disciplines that we do and all the stuff we do,
it's not like grabbing God and pulling him down to us, as we just said.
He's already there wherever we are.
We just have to, yeah, I use the radio analogy. The
Bryan: Yep.
Ryan: radio waves are everywhere here. You just have to have an antenna and tune into it. And that's what us talking about the scriptures today, when we pray, when we meditate, when we praise him, we worship him. It's like, don't you see a little bit clearer who God is?
Don't you remember and carry that with you? And like, if you don't rush through your day too much that you miss the truth and forget to remember that he is with us, then you can have your eyes open like she did to the well of life that is already right there.
Bryan: Yeah. So we see this such a beautiful picture here of this stranger who then hears and sees and who gets to experience God's presence in a way that, I mean, boy, I would not have expected that early in the Bible from somebody, you know, coming from
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. And one other thing that I discovered that was cool about Ishmael is it's, and you can hear it, you can hear the word Shema
It's Shema plus El. You know, the Shema, Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5, the greatest commandment, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind."
And that word for here, Shema, is the name that, you know, the name for that prayer that the Jews would say every morning, every night, often. And it means, Shema, listen deeply, lean in, really tune your ear, hear me. Only here, it's not us tuning in, leaning in, carefully tuning our ear to God. It's God tuning his ear, us.
God Shema's us. he really hears us.
Bryan: Such a cool
story. I mean, right?
Ryan: such a
Bryan: out of just this little blip on the radar here in the book of Genesis, we get so many amazing pictures of God and who he is and what he does for us. And I, boy, now let's just roll all of this right into a conversation about Jesus.
Ryan: we like to do.
Emmanuel God With Us
Ryan: And so there's one more Hebrew word we want to go to of these heavy words. And it's another, you know, Matthew 1 gives us another birth announcement and another name chosen by God and tells Joseph there in Matthew 1 that he'll name him Jesus because he's going to save his people from their sins. Jesus, Yahweh saves, and it will be a fulfillment of this prophecy from Isaiah 7 that he will be Emmanuel, God with us, which just fits this story so well.
Bryan—I wanted to ask you this question I've been thinking about. Why do you think the Bible makes such a big deal about Jesus, Emmanuel, coming and experiencing everything we experience when, like, didn't Jesus as God already know everything about us already? What did he learn? What did he have to know differently by coming and being with us?
Bryan: Oh, man. I mean, how much time do you have? Like, this could
be a... Yeah,
It is such a good question, right? Like, there's an idea there that this is about presence and how sometimes it can feel like God's presence is walled off from us.
And really it is. Like, when Adam and Eve were booted out of the garden, right? They weren't allowed into God's presence any longer like they had been. And so the intimacy there was severed because of humanity's choices to, you know, go off and do their own thing and to, you know, blaze their own trail and everything else.
And so because of that sin which separates us, we need this presence. And I feel like the reason why Emmanuel, God with us, is so important is because that is the goal. Like, that is the going-back-to-the-garden kind of experience that we so badly want. I so badly want to be back in a relationship back in the presence of God.
And so for him to come down, you know, in the form of flesh and live among us is, you know, basically bridging that gap. He is the perfect mediator between us and God, you know, bringing us the exact imprint of God's nature in himself. But why he needed to do that, I think, it's just hard to describe for me, but just like viscerally I feel it.
Like, I think I would feel very distant from God still, knowing that he knows but not experiencing his presence.
Ryan: That's such a great word, "present," that picture you gave of coming down. Like, we can't climb up to him. He has to come down to us. And it's—I like that, too, about the visceral experience. Like, there's fact knowledge,
and then there's experiential knowledge. God knew everything already. Jesus knew all the facts about us, but him experiencing it—I mean, we do that, too.
Like, you can know everything about me and not know
me, right? Going with this searching and being known, like—but
But Jesus doesn't have to imagine, even.
He knows it. He gets it completely.
Bryan: you're saying, I think maybe just put simply, and this might sound too trite, but like to put yourself in someone's shoes literally is what Jesus is doing. I mean, he is literally putting himself in humanity's shoes, experiencing temptation, going through all of the struggles and difficulties yet accomplishing it all perfectly.
Like, for him to have gone through and walked a mile in my shoes, I feel like now there is a, there's a closeness there that would not have existed prior to him doing that.
Ryan: I was going to bring up the Nathaniel moment we talked about in the Winter Watch party, you know, before, whenever you were under the fig tree, "I saw you, and behold, an Israelite in whom is no guile."
What do you take from putting those two
Bryan: Oh boy. I mean, yeah. It's a very different level of knowing, I guess. Like, I saw you. I, I knew you. I know, I know something about you, right? And that's kind of what he goes on to say there. Like, I know your character. I know what's going on inside of you. Like, I get you. And, that's not a, that's not something that just a random stranger can say with any kind of, convincing or whatever.
It's like, For Jesus to have seen him in that moment, I think just really highlights the fact that, you know, he truly is the Son of God as he goes on to say. You know, "Rabbi, teacher, you are the Son of God." That, to know that God sees him, that he is aware of him from a distance, you know, that, that is Hagar.
It's the story of Hagar, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. It's the story, quite frankly, of every connection where Jesus observes someone who society has cast off, right? And I think that's where Hagar's story is so powerful. Like, Jesus sees the lepers and the thieves and the adulterous people.
He sees these people that society has pushed to the fringes, you know, the immigrants, the people who are just not in society's good graces, and he observes them. Like, but not just to, like, watch them from a distance, like, he knows them and gets them and understands them. And boy, I mean, that is why Emmanuel, God with us, is so encouraging.
The fact that he sees and really dignifies us, I think, is mostly the point. It's like, he sees us as images of God, even though we're, you know, dim reflections of his glory so
Ryan: what we see with each of those is like this—his presence, his seeing, his knowing is transformational. It changes things. Hagar went from no hope to hope, and she even obeyed what was, as we talked about, she walked away with contempt for Sarah, and then she returns, which, you know, there's some abusive situations.
I wouldn't advise somebody to do that, but God knew what her future was going to
be, and he said, "You go back, yeah." And he keeps caring for her, and Nathaniel comes to faith by being known and seen, and over and over again, the Samaritan woman goes around telling everybody as this, you know, amazing
Bryan: He tells me everything I ever did,
Ryan: everyone knew.
And so there's this change that comes whenever we get that God gets us, that Jesus gets us, and that he loves us, and that he's here to forgive our past and make us into something. And maybe that's the place, as we kind of think of this movement in these names, from stranger to seen and heard, and then God coming near to be with us, is to know that you're seen, to call out to him, to live as if these things that we believe about his presence and his love for us are true, you know, to let those really affect how we go through our life, obeying him, trusting him, calling on him, relying on him.
Living It Out and Wrap
Ryan: Whatever you're carrying, whatever you're worried about, whatever is overburdening you, maybe things you don't even want to think about because they seem hopeless, bring them to the God who sees and know that he is the God who hears and comes near.
Bryan: Well, I think this is great, and maybe as a way to wrap this up and to offer a challenge for us, I think that song that you were talking about earlier,
Ryan: Oh
Bryan: you know, singing on Sunday, "I Am His Child," like, the idea there would be a cool way of spending the week thinking about, maybe if not singing the song, you know, reading about the lyrics to the song and reminding us about God seeing us and the fact that he cares so much about us and he assures us of his presence.
So that's the challenge. Sing this song, "I Am His Child" this week. I think that could be a really cool one.
Ryan: that's great. We'll link to it in the show notes somewhere on YouTube, I'm sure there's a version of somebody singing that, so yeah, that's great. It's a powerful idea. "I Am His Child," also my dad loved that song, so it has special meaning to me. But yeah, thanks for letting me steer our whole conversation into this lady's story that I've been thinking about this week, and I hope that it was as helpful to others as it was for me.
Bryan: Even though she didn't make it into the Matriarchs and Leaders, I think it was perfectly, perfectly timed here in this
Ryan: She might still make the Final Four. She's doing
Bryan: She's doing -maybe after this episode, people will have a hard time disregarding her. So this has been a fun episode. Yeah. So God is the one who sees Hagar in the wilderness and he sees us in our own wilderness seasons. And I think my takeaway from this conversation is that I want to be like Jesus. As in all things, right? That's always gonna be my takeaway. But I want to be like Jesus. I want to be the one who sees others in ways
that others don't get to see them or others don't extend to them.
I think there's so many people in my life I could just kind of put down into the, you know, into the shadows and maybe not consider them much. But boy, when I have an opportunity to reflect Jesus into the life of someone else and see them and acknowledge them and connect with them in a way, I mean, it's gonna take some time and energy maybe, an effort that maybe I wouldn't have put in normally, but that's what Jesus would do.
So that's my takeaway from this lesson. I think Hagar and her story was such a motivator for me in the way that I deal with others. What about you? Yeah.
Ryan: I think this idea of the wilderness is really something I'm going to be sitting with, that
wilderness is a place, like literally in their world, where life and death are just so close together. It's like just one little thing goes wrong and you're gone. We talk about being in the middle of nowhere, we never really are that disconnected, but we do go through wilderness seasons where our life feels that dry, that weary, that difficult, that much of a—we have that much of a need for relying on God.
And it's this interesting thing that happens throughout the Bible where those seasons where people go to the wilderness is actually where they tend to be closest to God. Like in Hosea, Hosea 2, Hosea 13, God talks about the wilderness like longingly. Remember that time, almost like a honeymoon, when I knew you and you leaned on me in the wilderness?
It's this special period. Revelation 12, the church, basically, this woman is in the wilderness and relying on God. And it's kind of like the idea of like in weakness, we're made strong and learn to rely on His grace. It just helps me think about whenever I—I'm not in a wilderness season, really, unless you think of all of life as wilderness, you know, right now.
But I can think back a couple years or five years before that or a few years before that to these times when, man, I didn't know what was going on. It's so hard.
Bryan: Yep.
Ryan: And when I look back now, I can see I really grew in that. I really leaned on God. I really learned to trust Him. I needed that, and my story makes more sense having gone through those wilderness periods.
Bryan: And it doesn't make any sense, right? Why would transformation and real growth happen in this dry place? Boy, God can make it happen. God can illuminate
Ryan: Yeah,
Bryan: the well out in the middle of the dry land. I love this story so much. So thanks everyone for tuning in to the Bible Geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at biblegeeks.fm.
You can find show notes for this episode, links and all the things we've talked about there on our website as well. On our next episode, we'll be talking about the Friends and Followers Regional, a little mini episode that we're gonna do looking at another "minor character" in the New Testament as this woman was following Jesus around.
And until that episode, may the Lord bless you all and keep you.
Ryan: Shalom