7Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am freeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” Genesis 16:7,8.
American preacher and author Robert H. Schuller wrote that, “Tough times never last, but tough people do”. Tough times are part of life. You decide which journey to take but you do not decide which battles to fight. Watching the movie Social Network about how facebook came into being, I learnt that every worthwhile dream faces strong systemic oppositions. Sometimes tough times are prove that you are pursuing something good. What tough battles are you fighting? Are they making you weak or strong? There are four lessons from the experience of Hagar who faced tough times in the hands of her mistress Sarai. (Read the whole story in Genesis 16.)
The Wilderness. He is considered the fourth prolific inventor in history. The light bulb we enjoy today came as a result of him. He invented the mechanical vote recorder, the battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. Thomas Edison did not achieve this feat on a silver platter. Indeed, what resulted in the making of the light bulb were years of failures. He experienced more than 500 attempts to make just one thing work. The wilderness is a period of time when things do not seem to be working. We try all the strategies and implement all the plans but still get little results. For some people the wilderness is lack of money to fund a project, but for Hagar it was a moment when she was thrown away from her mistress’ house. Anyone desirous of a dream will taste the wilderness.
The Questions. Every wilderness experience springs surprises of questions. Have you noticed that it is when you are broke that you get more ideas? There were two critical questions asked Hagar. Firstly, “where have you come from?” It inquires of your past, background, departure place and most importantly the use of your memory. Secondly, “where are you going?” It asks about your future, what is yet to come, destination and more so the use of your imagination. The wilderness affords us the rare opportunity to avail ourselves to such introspective questions about life. The quality of these questions determines the quality of the answers you get. I dare to ask you: where have you come from and where are you going in life?
Our Choice. The power of choice determines the path we chart in life. Choices empower decisions about whether to remain in the past or to go after the future. Upon being asked about the past and the future, Hagar chose to answer the past. “I am freeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai,” she said. It is easy to answer the past but difficult to imagine the future. She was blinded by past experiences. Can you tell the future in the face of stack difficult realities? In my first year at the university I was asked the frequently asked questions: which school are you coming from and what would you like to do after university? I answered where I was coming from but somehow could not tell my future. Like Hagar, I was comfortable with the past because I had experienced it.
God’s Choice. I read somewhere that what brings about worry and anxiety is when people are not in control of life’s issues. The angel of the Lord focused on the second part of the questions. In verses 9 to 16, she was given the blue-print of the future. God focuses on the future and answers the question “where are you going?” The solution of God to your wilderness experience is to look beyond today. He stretches you to do the unusual. He wants us to use the power of our imagination to paint a glorious picture of the future. This is how the Master of Imagination (God) puts it in Jeremiah 29:11 that, “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
What is important about any tough time in life is not whether you will go through one but whether you will come out to realize your God-given dream. Hagar’s story taught me the lesson that God is more committed to our dream than we are. He knows what we don’t know. He sees what we cannot see. In all things, know this: No experience has ever surprised God.
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