Alone On the Road

Have you ever felt lost, even while in a large crowd, almost like you were invisible? There are people all around you, but still you feel lonely. Have you ever felt alone and isolated, seemingly forgotten, as if “out of sight and out of mind” was really true? Is it as if you are walking alongside the road all by yourself? You feel abandoned by the family and friends, by the world, and by maybe even abandoned by El Shaddai, Almighty God himself. Today I want to share the story of a woman from the Old Testament who felt that way, at least until she had an encounter with God.

The woman is Hagar. You probably know the story. In Genesis Chapter 15 God promised Abram that He would bless him and make him into a great nation. In fact, God promised Abram that his descendants would outnumber the stars. Ten years passed and Abram and his wife Sarai were quickly aging and still childless. So, like most of us would do, they began to have doubts and decided to take matters into their own hands. It was a custom during those times that is a man’s wife was barren, another woman could have a child in the wife’s place. 

In Chapter 16 the story continues; Sarai tells Abram to sleep with Hagar, their Egyptian maidservant, and perhaps it would be through Hagar that God would fulfill his promise of making a great nation. Abram, probably after wiping a big grin off his face, slept with Hagar. She became pregnant and as you might imagine, this eventually caused great tension and made for a complicated relationship between the three of them. Sarai began to mistreat Hagar, so the maidservant packed her bags and fled, returning through the desert to her homeland.

(It is not until Genesis Chapter 17 that God changes their names to Abraham and Sarah.)

In the ancient Middle East, women got their value through their husband. Women were not held in high esteem at all, but a married woman held more value in society than a single woman, and an unmarried pregnant maidservant would likely have value only slightly greater than the dung from donkeys that likely squished under Hagar’s feet as she walked through the desert on her way back to Shur, which was located in the Arabian Peninsula, just east of Egypt. As a side note, in the book of Exodus, we are told that the Israelites traveled through the wilderness of Shur on their way from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai (15:22).  

In Genesis 16:7, as Hagar sits near a spring in the desert, likely feeling very scared and very alone, an angel of the Lord shows up and has a conversation with her. It is in those moments that Hagar comes to the wonderful realization that she is not invisible or forgotten. Here is what we read – “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’” (16:13).  

Hagar calls God “El Roi,” translated “the God who sees.” And then in v.14 we read, “Therefore the well (the spring at which Hagar sat) was called Beer-lahai-roi,” which literally means “the well of the Living One who see me.”

So, today, whether you feel lost in a crowd of eighty thousand people, all alone in the desert, or by yourself on the road, please hear this… God loves you, and not only that, He knows you, He cares for you, and He has plans for you. And just like Hagar, regardless of your current situation or circumstances, right here, right now, El Roi says to you, “I see you!”

Imagine the joy in knowing that God sees you! You are never out of His sight, even in your most lonely of moments, even in your darkest troubles! Do you believe that today?

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