Whose Advice? Hagar is Found

An important step in planning any journey is getting advice. When going to the grocery, that may mean checking the ads to see who has the best sales. Perhaps a friend tells us that roasts are only $2 a pound someplace. We may decide to change our normal buying routine and go to a store that we don’t normally visit based on the advice we get. Sometimes we get good advice and sometimes we find out the information was wrong. (We get to the store to discover that roasts aren’t on sale after we fill our basket with other food.) On our journey with Hagar, we reach the point of the journey where we need to get advice.

Hagar did not get good advice before she left Abram’s camp. We don’t know if she talked to other members of the tribe or if she just decided to run away. In any event she found herself, as we saw last week, at “a spring of water in the wilderness.” She is at a fork in the road on her journey. Alone and confused, Hagar thinks she has nowhere to turn. She enters into a conversation with the “angel of the Lord” who gives her some rather unwelcome advice.

And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ ’The angel of the LORD said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ The angel of the LORD also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’ And the angel of the LORD said to her, ‘Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the LORD has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin.’ (Gen. 16:8-12)

Hagar is advised to return to Sarai. This is not the counsel she wants. Often when we come to a turning point or crossroads on our journey we are confronted with unwelcome advice. Friends may point out that we need to quit some habit that is bad for our health or advise us to leave a job we are unhappy with.

“I don’t want to return to Sarai,” Hagar may have argued. “If Abram really wanted this child, he would have come after me. I don’t want to go back to the camp. It will be worse now than it was before. How do I know you are really from the God of my master?”

Hagar, like us, is hesitant to follow the advice. To soften the blow, and to encourage her, the messenger tells Hagar ‘your offspring [will be so many] that they cannot be counted for multitude.’ To start this dynasty, she will bear a son who will be named Ishma-el. The name means El (God) hears or listens and understands. Names were more important in ancient times than they are in the modern western world, so this name was assurance to Hagar that God knew about her “affliction.” Every time she speaks to her son, she will be reminded of this encounter.

Hagar is confronted, in the midst of her distress, by the active, present, all-knowing, loving God. She is given the assurance, through the name of her son, that God always sees and understands her situation.

“How can this be, I am only a slave girl?” Hagar’s confusion is understandable. “If I return to Abram, my son will no longer be mine, but will belong to him.”

Then the angel tells her that Ishmael will “be a wild ass of a man…and he shall live at odds with all his kin.” This is not necessarily a comforting comment to a pregnant woman who hopes for security for her unborn child.

Like each of us Hagar had to decide whether to accept the words of the angel and believe that God could accomplish what was promised or she could refuse to listen and obey. We have to be careful who we ask for advice and what advice we heed. We have the option of listening to caring friends or of taking no action at all.

There is always someone willing to tell us what we think we want to hear—comforting words rather than true advice. At other times good counselors direct us toward God (like my grandchild sharing the Bible with mom's guinea pigs). The same God who met Hagar, sends us good advisors for the big decisions we need to make. It’s up to us to listen and act on their advice.

Who do you listen to when you need advice? Friends? Scripture? The web? Co-workers?

How do you decide whose advice is good and whose isn’t that great? One way is to check with more than one source or friend. Another is to listen to what your heart tells you about the advice. Prayer is often our last option, esp. taking/finding time to listen to God’s response. I find one way to focus my questions and seek answers is:
SPEND time in prayer, laying your current questions and concerns before God.
THEN take time to sit in silence and listen for any answer that may come.
BE AWARE throughout the week of conversations, articles, or other ways that God may be speaking to you.
RETURN again to prayer again to “be still and know God”.

We only have a couple of more weeks with Hagar. Next week we'll see whether or not she listened to the advice of the messenger of the Living God. See you then.