He Knows My Name!
Isn’t it good to go into a crowd of people that you don’t know and all of a sudden someone comes up to you and calls you by name? All of a sudden, light comes into the room – you are not in a place where you are not known, someone knows who you are.
One of the saddest things in the world today is the numbers of children who do not know their name. Abandoned by their fathers and sometimes even their mothers, they wander through life searching to find their identity. Sadly, too many seek for family in all the wrong places and get tied up in gangs or drug cartels. Those who prey upon the lost and the lonely take advantage of their lack of identity and offer them a "name" that they can connect with.
The Bible tells us of life as it is and has been, not just the way we would like it. Slavery was real, not just in America in the early history of this nation, but for thousands of years, man enslaved other men (and women). In fact, the beloved patriarch of our faith, Abraham, had slaves; and so did his wife Sarah. In fact, when Sarah found she could not have children, she urged her husband Abraham to take her handmaid (slave) and impregnate her, so that Sarah could then take the child and raise it as her own. Imagine that, the slave would not even have rights to her own child, she would have to give it to her mistress after she bore it, nursed it, and then even take care of it when the mistress had other things she wanted to do!
This was the lot that befell Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah. She was ordered to sleep with Abraham and after she conceived, she looked at her mistress with disdain. Sarah went immediately to Abraham and complained about Hagar, and he told her to do with her as she wanted to do – after all, she was only a slave! Sarah decided to make Hagar’s life miserable, and Hagar decided enough was enough, she ran away.
As she wandered in the desert, all of a sudden, someone came up to her that knew her name:
9 The Angel of the Lord said to her, "Go back to your mistress, and submit [c]humbly to her authority." 10 Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count." 11 The Angel of the Lord continued,
"Behold, you are with child,
And you will bear a son;
And you shall name him Ishmael (God hears),
Because the Lord has heard and paid attention to your persecution (suffering)….
13 Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are God Who Sees"; for she said, "Have I not even here [in the wilderness] remained alive after seeing Him [who sees me with understanding and compassion]?" 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi (Well of the Living One Who Sees Me); it is between Kadesh and Bered. Genesis 16:9-11;13-14 (AMP)
Here in the desert an angel of the Lord calls out to Hagar and tells her that she is to return to her mistress and bear the child who would be a son – and don’t worry about it, because God Himself had "heard and paid attention to (her) suffering! Talk about knowing your name! How could Hagar not give the response she gave, "You are God who sees" – and I like the Amplified for it explains what God saw; He saw her pain, He saw her servitude, He saw her suffering and He saw it with "understanding and compassion".
God sees you too! God knows your name! He knows what situations you are facing and with compassion and understanding He is calling you to hold on, for in your life is greatness!
Maria