"The God Who Sees Me" Genesis 16-17, Matthew 5:27-48

Sarai put her slave into the arms of her husband. Created a mess in the couple's story. Yet, they all found God in all that sorrow.  Hagar ran as hard as she could into the wilderness. It's my default too---most fight or flight. I take to the streets. She ran out of the arms of Abraham---ran out of her deep distress, out of her deep sorrow, out of her deep sin. Into the wilderness. And an Angel found her there. It was exactly a decade ago when I began running from a distress of our own making. And if that Angel had not found me, I wouldn't even be here. I was found alive in the wilderness. And I became enthralled with the God Who Sees Me. That's what Hagar called Him---she named Him that. She could never be the same again, even in all of her mess. Me either. She went back to the same situation. Nothing was changed except for her very own life and the child she carried within. It is a Beautiful Mercy when God stands in the middle of our road like He did with Balaam. He did that for us, bringing us to Austin. It's been an unbelievably good, hard decade here. But we met that Eternal Word in our own wilderness, where it wasn't expected, full of sorrow, full of distress, and it is so much more than we could have ever hoped or expected. Marked forever by The God Who Sees Me! 

“I have now seen[c] the One who sees me.” Genesis 16:13