Over four thousand years ago, a young woman named Hagar lay pregnant, alone and dying in the desert. Imagine the terror and heartbreak of being with child and knowing the life inside would never take its first breath.
So what happened in the darkest moment of Hagar’s life?
God saw her.
Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?” Genesis 16:7-8 (NKJV)
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What a strange thing to emanate from the God who knows everything. He already knew the answers, so why ask the questions? What did it mean to Hagar?
What did it mean to me as I explored the Word of God?
The first statement seemed to probe the past. Where have you come from suggests an earlier time frame, deeper than where Hagar had been yesterday. Deeper than where I had been.
Where are you going initiated a look into the future. What did Hagar think that looked like for her? What did the future look like for me? I prayed on both inquiries for days because, quite frankly, they confused me.
And then I understood.
Her mind had been too busy wallowing in her broken past and working on her exit strategy to notice God was with her. Which resulted in her believing she was alone, desperate and dying.
But then he stood beside her in the heat of the day and Hagar instantly realized she was present in God’s presence. And in that moment, alone and present with God, she changed forever.
It’s important to note that Hagar’s situation did not change. God told her to go back to where she had come from. I’ll look closer at that next month. But what’s important now is that she obeyed and returned to her tribe a new woman from the inside out.
We look back and see where God was in our past. We look forward and worry about our future. But God is with us right here, right now, and we can miss that. ~Beth Reece
Take time to be still and present with the Lord. It’s in those quiet moments that, like Hagar four-thousand years ago, you remember he sees you and you are not alone.
In the present moment, contemplate this:
Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10 (NKJV)
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
Blessings,
KD Holmberg
KD Holmberg contributes to christianfictionauthors.com on the 28th of each month. Her debut novel THE EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, A Story of Hagar, will be released July 1, 2021 by Mountain Brook Ink.
THE EGYPTIAN PRINCESS is an award-winning manuscript about a young woman named Hagar who found herself embroiled in a fateful, contentious love triangle that changed the course of human history. It is told from the Hebrew and Arabic tradition that Hagar was the daughter of the king of Egypt; making her a princess before she became a handmaid in the first Hebrew tribe.
KD Holmberg is a retired flight attendant who has lived and traveled all over the globe. She is the married mother of five, and has eight extraordinary grandchildren. She and her husband, Keith, love to travel and golf, and live in the foothills of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
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