At What Point Did You Meet Hagar? The Inanity of Human Judgment (1)

At What Point Did You Meet Hagar? The Inanity of Human Judgment

…Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away. The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied. – Genesis 16:6-8 (New Living Translation)

Have you ever felt misjudged on an issue you were innocent about or misunderstood concerning a matter you knew was not as it looked or was interpreted? Human judgment is one of the cheapest commodities around. You really do not need to be an expert to form an opinion about someone or pass a judgment on them. At times, human judgment or public opinion can be so damning and unforgiving that they push the person being judged to the extreme.

You have probably also been guilty of wrongfully judging others or misunderstanding them at other times as well. We all do it. Therefore, if you turn the table around and check out how you felt when you were misunderstood or wrongly castigated for something you knew nothing about, that will help you to appreciate how those whom you must have done the same thing to would have felt after their encounter with you.

In the next few days, we will be meditating on the absurdity of human judgement so as to let us see why we need to be restrained in passing judgment on people, particularly when we do not know the totality of their story up till the time they took a misstep that made us so mad at them. For reference, we will be using the experience of Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah and Abraham, for the purpose of our study on this topic.

Our reference passage highlights an incident that happened in Abraham’s household. In the passage, we read that Sarai started treating her maidservant, Hagar, very harshly. Sarai was so ruthless in her dealing with Hagar that she ran away from the house.

Now, please bear in mind that at this time, Hagar was already pregnant and was expecting a baby. In fact, she was carrying a surrogate pregnancy for her master and mistress who could not bear a child on their own. Nevertheless, the couple did not treat her well and were really mean to her that she had to flee for dear life.

While she was running away, she was resting beside a spring when a man, an angel of the LORD met her. Now imagine what sight Hagar must have looked – pregnant, panting, in tattered clothing, probably with bruises on her body, and looking really tired and lifeless sitting by that spring. She was probably in tears as well, as she must then be ruing her lot to have had such heartless mistress as Sarah.

The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied.

If you were that man, seeing how she looked and hearing her response, what would your reaction be?

To be continued…

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• A Statement of Fact
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