Hearing Hagar Afresh

"So, yo, God are you really here?"

I've spent considerable time over the last 2 months in all kinds of circles. Time with pastors of established churches or church planters or lay members or ministry workers and leaders or nonprofit works or staff employees. All of these spaces have communicated the above question in multiple ways. But once I heard it amongst my core team and those whom I'm grateful to minister to, caught off guard doesn't best describe it.

There are lots of people who feel unseen. They feel forgotten. They believe they've been overlooked and are looked over for quite some time. This is the soil that I do ministry in. These are their cries. I can hear them verbally processing the same thing Hagar did in Genesis 16. Running away from rejection. Running aimlessly to unknown places of comfort. Or just running from God.

Her story has served as a life-giving gospel reminder to my soul! It's also equipped me with language that's often foreign to Fairburn and those on my core team. Adonai El Roi. Genesis 16.13 says it this way — "She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

Far too many pastors and ministry leaders walk around doing ministry feeling unsure if God sees them. And if they're not settled, you can only imagine how the people in the pews are feeling. Now triple that with the people who still attend church with church hurt or those who've left church due to real church hurt. This is especially true for our sisters in Christ who unfortunately feel they have to silently hide in the open.

Her story has taught me that I don't have to be Neo. I struggle, and have possibly even failed, in leading people to see that God sees them. That God will visit them. That God has not forgotten about them. That it's okay to have Hagar moments of doubt and despair (so, yo, God are you really here?) as long as you can be reminded of Adonai El Roi - the Lord God who sees me.