Where are you intending to go??

So.....the thing that strikes me today is that God makes this name known to an Egyptian Slave - Hagar, Not Abraham or Sarai, not Noah, but an Egyptian Slave- ....ok quick LSV recap:

We all remember that Sarah had gone into the FIX IT ROOM....fixes up her husband with an Egyptian slave - in hopes of having a child.

Sarah will get the child - and Abraham gets an immediate headache...two wives..bickering...jealousy. He throws his hands up and says to Sarah "She is your slave- you deal with her"

Sarai does deal with her - "severely", "Humbling and afflicting " her.

\Hagar fled from Sarah.

Again, we find Hagar in the wilderness. Pregnant, alone.

The angel of the Lord comes to her and says....."Hagar, Sarai's maid. where did you come from and where are you intending to go?"

Remember the list of names that we spoke about a few weeks ago - those in our families that we were praying for - praying that they would come to salvation? You can almost hear Jesus whispering to them " Where did you come from and where are you intending to go?" He stands in their wilderness and he waits for them to fall- off of their own perches, off of their own way of doing things, off of their own circumstances...to fall down - in their wilderness - and to be alone with Him.

How sweet is our God.....an Egyptian slave - pregnant with the Muslim race...and God SEES HER>

Those of us that are praying for our family members - they are "Egyptian slaves" as well. Slaves to the world, slaves to the power of the enemy, pregnant with sinful natures. But- God whispers to them all "....where did you come from and where are you intending to go?" I pray that all of our family members - who need to know God- would stop in their wilderness and consider the voice of God that calls to them...where are you intending to go?????

Hagar's response, to the Angel of the Lord, is so telling: "I am running away"...I would offer up that each of the people we are praying for are running away as well. Running to try to find something that God -ALONE- was meant to fill. Trying to fill the "God Spot" in their hearts with material stuff, booze, drugs, relationships. But - the GOD SPOT can only be filled by Him, through Him - and there is nothing on earth that was ever intended to fill it. Not the flat screen TV, or the BMW. Not the 6th marriage, or the umpteenth boyfriend. Not the beer and scotch, and not the drugs. That spot is God's alone.. How our hearts break as we see members of our family- slaves - running through the wilderness.

OK, back to the story - the Angel of The Lord says:

"Go back and humbly submit yourself to her control."

That is my prayer for each of the names that we pray about ----that they would go back to a relationship with God. Go back to He that knit them together in the womb. Go back to a God that follows them through their wilderness- waiting for them to fall. Go back and humbly submit to His control.....