At What Point Did You Meet Hagar? The Inanity of Human Judgment (4)

At What Point Did You Meet Hagar? The Inanity of Human Judgment (4)

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife… So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt. – Genesis 16:1-4 (New Living Translation)

Today, we continue our meditation on the reason behind the kind of advice the angel of the LORD gave to Hagar when he found her running away from her mistress’ house. The angel told her to return to her mistress and submit to her. Period.

Our reference passage gave an insight into why the angel must have given such a counsel to Hagar. Hence, the question, at what point did you meet Hagar?

For anyone who met Hagar at the pond where she was resting during her escape from Sarah, and seeing the way she looked, pregnant, tattered, and tired, the spontaneous response would be to pity her and label Abraham and Sarah a wicked couple after hearing her story. Today, both Abraham and Sarah would have had it very sore indeed and may be locked behind bars after they must have been rough handled and made to go viral all over the internet.

However, and interestingly too, God did not chastise or condemn Abraham and Sarah because He had a foreknowledge of what transpired that led to Hagar’s flee. From the passage, we can see that Hagar was the architect of her own misery. From a lowly estate as a servant of the family, she was chosen to carry a surrogate pregnancy for the family.

Then, after she became pregnant for the boss, she started to treat her benefactress with contempt. She allowed her relative success of being pregnant, which meant achieving something her mistress had not been able to do, to get into her head and she started misbehaving toward her benefactress. As we can see, that proved costly for her in return as Sarah changed her attitudes towards her and started mistreating her. Afterall, Sarah was still the woman of the house, a fact that Hagar seemed to have forgotten because of her pregnancy.

Therefore, before you judge the matter, at what point did you meet Hagar? Did you see her when she was being rude and disrespectful to her boss, whose idea it was that she had the surrogate pregnancy, or did you meet her when she was a fugitive running away from the house when she was punished for her bad behavior? At what point did you meet her as to form your opinion on the matter and pass judgement?

The fact that God, who was omniscient met her in a sorry state and ordered her back to her mistress’ house, even after hearing her sorry story, meant that God’s reasoning is usually poles apart from human judgment. God does not judge matters the way we usually latch on to sides and pass verdict on what is right and wrong. God’s judgment usually factors context into the equation before making His stance known, and His contexts are usually informed by His word and the backgrounds of the matter.

Therefore, the next time you need to judge a matter, perhaps you should ask yourself, at what point are you basing your judgement? Does your analysis take into consideration the background of the issue or the people involved? Also, is your judgment based on the word of God or on popular opinion? Those two often do not agree, as you can see with the saga of Hagar.

To be continued…

You Will Succeed in Jesus Name!

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