The Deserted Beach

Have you ever felt alone and isolated? Invisible? Forgotten? Is it as if you are walking alone on a deserted beach. The vastness of the ocean and the width of the beach makes you feel very small, very insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The only living creatures in sight are the dolphins swimming close to the shoreline, and you are sure they don’t know you are nearby. Even the seagulls are nonexistent.

This past weekend, my wife and I walked hand in hand on a beach like I just described. For us, those moments are restful and peaceful. The “aloneness” is what we very much needed. But that is a different story for a different day (tomorrow).

Maybe you keep getting passed by for a promotion at work. You wonder if management even knows you work there.

You moved into a new neighborhood several months ago, but no neighbors, not even one, have stopped to say hello and welcome you.

That church you have been visiting, the one that advertises itself as a welcoming church, well, the only person to even make eye contact with you was the guy at the next urinal, as you both got rid of the coffees drunk during the service.

You feel abandoned by the family and friends, by the world, and by maybe even abandoned by El Shaddai, Almighty God himself. You wonder if anyone knows or cares that you exist. Today I want to share the story of a woman from the Old Testament who felt that way, at least until she had a very personal encounter with God.

The woman is Hagar. In Genesis Chapter 15 God promised Abram that He would bless Abram and make him into a great nation. In fact, Abram’s descendants would outnumber the stars. Fast forward ten years. Abram and his wife Sarai were quickly aging and still childless. So, like most of us would do, they began to have doubts, deciding to take matters into their own hands. (It is not until Genesis Chapter 17 that God changes their names to Abraham and Sarah.)

It was a custom during those times that if a man’s wife was barren, another woman could have a child in the wife’s place. In Chapter 16 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, and she became pregnant (vv.1-4).

As you might imagine, this created 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 of Shur (vv.4-6). As a side note, in the book of Exodus, we are told that the Israelites traveled through this same wilderness on their way from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai (Exodus 15:22).  

In the ancient Middle East, women got their value through their husband. An unmarried pregnant maidservant would be viewed as having almost zero societal value and worth. 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 (vv.7-12). 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, no matter how alone you feel, how small you feel, 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 on that deserted beach! Do you believe that today?

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