"Hagar: I Matter to God"
Gen.16; 21:8-21 July 21/02
An Epidemic of Poor Esteem
More people than you would guess wrestle with feelings of poor self-esteem and low self-worth. We've all had those moments when we feel inferior, we don't think we matter, we seem to be a "nobody". But thanks to the Lord Jesus, even nobodies can feel noticed: wonder of wonders, God loves us personally and has a future for those in misery who call out to Him.
Dr James Dobson in the book Hide or Seek: How to Build Self-Esteem in Your Child lists the most common causes of a poor sense of self-worth. While still young children we become conscious of differences in beauty, intelligence, and so on, and start to compare ourselves and mentally "rank" our peers. It's all too easy to pick on those who are different. Woody Allen tells of being on his way to his violin lesson when he passed the pool hall where "Floyd" and his friends hung out. They were stealing hubcaps (from moving cars). Floyd called Woody an insulting name as he passed, and being a "cocky kid", Woody announced that he didn't take that from anybody! He put down his violin and said, "If you want to address me, you will call me Master Haywood Allen!" Woody adds that he spent that winter in a wheelchair. A team of doctors laboured to remove a violin from his skull. His only good fortune, he says, was that it wasn't a cello!
But being tyrannized by the "Floyds" in our lives is not funny at the time. Dobson was given this note by the mother of a fourth-grade girl who found it on her desk: "Awful Janet: Your the stinkest girl in this world. I hope you die but of course I suppose that's impossible. I've got some ideals. 1) Play in the road 2) Cut your throad 3) Drink poison 4) get drunk 5) knife yourself Please do some of this you big fat Girl. we all hate you. I'm praying Oh please Lord let Janet die. Were in need of fresh air. Did you hear me Lord cause if you didn't will all die with her here. See Janet we're not all bad. From Wanda Jackson"
It's not just children who compare themselves mercilessly; those of us who are adults are also conscious of the imperfection of our own beauty. Dobson writes, "Suddenly, at about thirty years of age, Mr Young begins to realize that everything is gradually turning loose. He presses his face close to the mirror and examines the new signs of deterioration. He's been hit by the well-known triple threat: sag, wrinkle, and droop! The pull of gravity is steadily destroying his jawline, and there is no way to anchor it in place. Most of the musculature which once rippled across his chest has now melted and skidded down toward his protruding stomach. A little more of his precious hair defects to the pillow each night, eventually leaving nothing above his ears but skin and bone. His wife can hardly console him -- she has troubles of her own. She brags to her husband that she still has the body of a twenty-year-old, and he replies, 'Well, give it back, you're getting it all wrinkled.'"
Besides beauty, intelligence is another index society uses to judge people's worth. Dobson, a former teacher, offers this example of the ways self-esteem is innocently assaulted in the classroom: "Miss Lodestar announces to her students that they are going to have an arithmetic contest. The ever-popular Johnny and Mary are asked to serve as captains, choosing team members alternately. Mary is granted first-draft choice and she grabs the ranking intellectual superstar, who moves to the side of the room nearest the captain. Johnny's first choice also goes to a kid with exceptional brain power. Through this entire process, dumb little Arnie is slumped down in his seat, knowing trouble is coming. He's thinking, "Somebody take me!" But Arnie can't even read -- much less do math -- and everyone knows he's stupid. The captains go on choosing until there's nobody left in the centre of the room except Arnie, the local dummy. Johnny says, 'You take him,' and Mary says, 'No! You take him.' Finally Miss Lodestar orders Johnny to include Arnie on his team. And sure enough, when the contest begins, guess who flubs up? Guess who causes his team to lose? Guess who wishes he could curl up and die?"
Many other factors can damage a person's self-esteem. Parents have a remarkable power, conveying respect and love or disappointment and disinterest. Older siblings can crush the confidence of a younger, weaker child. Early social blunders may be very painful, and remembered throughout a lifetime. Financial hardship, depriving a child of the clothes and lifestyle of his peers, can cause a child to feel inferior. For example, in the materialistic eyes of society, a pimply-faced teenager on a bicycle is somehow less worthy than a pimply-faced teenager in a Corvette! Disease such as a cardiac condition which forces Mom to nag and beg him to go slow can convince a child that he's brittle and defective. Being raised in a protected environment such as a farm can inhibit the development of social skills. And embarrassing family characteristics, such as having an alcoholic father or mentally retarded sibling, can produce a feeling of inferiority.
Whatever the cause of our feelings of low self-worth, this doubt, this looming question-mark about our value, has significant impact on our outlook and our society. Dobson cites a study he did amongst a group of women in which they ranked low self-esteem as the number one cause of depression. How we feel about ourselves affects how we work, too. It was reported that 80% of people who get fired from their jobs haven't failed to perform as required; that is, they don't lack technical skill -- their dismissal occurs because they can't get along with people. They misunderstand the motives of others and respond with belligerence or insubordination. Dobson concludes this could be minimized by learning to "see" others in a truer light, while preserving one's own dignity and sense of worth.
The psychiatrist observes, "The current epidemic of self-doubt has resulted from a totally unjust and unnecessary system of evaluating human worth, now prevalent in our society. Not everyone is seen as worthy; not everyone is accepted. Instead, we reserve our praise and admiration for a select few who have been blessed from birth with the characteristics we value most highly. It is a vicious system...The health of an entire society depends on the ease with which its individual members can gain personal self-acceptance. Thus, whenever the keys to self-esteem are seemingly out of reach for a large percentage of the people, as in 20th-century America, then widespread 'mental illness', neuroticism, hatred, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, and social disorder will certainly occur. Personal worth is not something human beings are free to take or leave. We must have it, and when it is unattainable, everybody suffers."
Some people feel so inferior that they can't believe even God could love them. They feel totally worthless and empty, thinking that God neither cares nor understands. One child, Chris, wrote this note to a psychotherapist who works with children: "Dear Doctor Gardner: What is bothering me is that long ago some big person it was a boy about 13 years old. He called me turtle and I know he said that because of my plastic sergery. And I think god hates me because of my lip. And when I die he'll probably send me to hell. -Love, Chris"
Hagar Discovers She Matters to God
Hagar was a "nobody" at the bottom of the social ladder who lived 41 centuries ago, yet found out that God loved her, not hated her, despite her limiting conditions. Though used and abused by others, Hagar discovered the Lord took notice of her and was bringing about a wonderful future for her.
When you read the account in Genesis 16 and 21, you can't blame Hagar for feeling ill-used, tossed aside like an unwanted widget. She was the maidservant of Sarai, Abram's wife, probably acquired when the couple visited Egypt. Already she has several strikes against her: a slave, a foreigner, unmarried and a woman in a male-dominated culture. It gets worse. About 10 years before, God had promised Abram descendants, but Sarai was barren so none had appeared on the scene. Hagar's mistress dreams up this scheme (allowed by the customs of the day) that Sarai would encourage Abram to beget children and build a family through Hagar, her personal slave. Picture Hagar as a young woman, and Abram as an old man of 85 years; put yourself in her position, and you can see why she might not be excited about the idea! But Hagar has no say; she's viewed as an object, a spatula or a haybine, something to be used or stored according to the need of the occasion. We read (Gen.16:3) that Sarai "took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife." Took - gave - like handling a commodity. "Your servant is in your hands," Abram says in 16:6, "Do with her whatever you think best." Hagar is not so much a person as property, something to be used, "done with". (Have you ever felt handed over, shuffled around, taken advantage of for someone else's purpose? Treated like so much machinery?)
But people aren't robots; they have feelings. When Hagar "knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress." (16:4) The wonder of the young baby developing in her womb for once gave Hagar a sense of value, being crucially needed for something. Comparing herself with barren Sarai, even though she was her mistress' slave, Hagar began to let slip looks of contempt. We're not told what it was exactly; maybe she didn't "hop to it" when summoned like she used to, or exhibited an air of indifference toward Sarai. Anyway, Her reaction to the new circumstances led Sarai to not only use her but abuse her. With Abram's complicity, "Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her." (16:6) Another time, after Hagar's son Ishmael was seen mocking Isaac, Sarah tells Abraham to send away both Hagar and her son, so as to protect Sarah's son's rights to the family fortune. In one of the saddest (if not cruelest) scenes of Abraham's life, he sends Hagar and Ishmael off into the wilderness with only a limited supply of food and water (21:14). Starvation and death loom for Hagar, and for what reason? Her mistress' plan worked and backfired. She was being fatally penalized, it seemed, for her obedience to what Sarai orchestrated. Not only was Hagar the Nothing to be eliminated, but her teenage son, her pride and joy, was to bite the dust along with her.
Yet it seems God specializes in caring for "nobodies" when no one else does. Remember the old muffler ad, "At Speedy you're a Somebody?" We might re-phrase that, "In the Spirit you're a Somebody!" Hagar learns three things about God's grace in noticing nobodies: 1) God sees and hears my misery; 2) the Lord opens my eyes to cope; 3) God has a plan for my future.
In chapter 16, when Hagar runs away, God's messenger meets her and respectfully calls her by name. The angel persuades Hagar to return to Sarai and submit to her. The angel names her future son Ishmael (lit.God hears), "for the Lord has heard of your misery". God has taken notice of the nastiness dealt out to this Nobody. In response, Hagar calls the Lord "You are the God who sees me", saying to herself, "I have now seen the One who sees me." (16:13) Later on, when Hagar and Ishmael are sent packing off into the desert, and Ishmael is nearly dead, we're told, "God heard the boy crying." (21:17) How about that! God sees and hears my misery.
Second, God opens my eyes to cope. In the first instance, the messenger told Hagar to go back and submit to Sarai. Did Hagar notice wounds on the hands and feet of the angel? Scholars debate about whether this was an actual appearance of Jesus back in the Old Testament. It could have been. Whatever happened, the angel's message must have bolstered Hagar's determination enough to return and make the best of the situation. As the apostle Peter later said about dealing with harsh masters: "...it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God...if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps." (1 Peter 2:19-21) Having seen the vision, Hagar was given grace to cope with the hardship.
The second time Hagar found herself out in the desert, God literally "opened her eyes" so that she saw a well of water (21:19). Thus Hagar and Ishmael were provided with water to survive, to go on; it was enough. God opens my eyes to cope.
Third, God has a plan for my future. When pregnant Hagar runs away, the angel not only says she'll have a boy, but adds, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." (16:10) And the Ishmaelites did become very numerous, living in the northern parts of Arabia. And to this day the Arabs, following Mohammed's example, claim to be descendants of Ishmael. (His mocking of Isaac can be seen as the prototype of the ongoing Jewish-Arab conflict.)
At the second appearance, God promises, "I will make [the boy] into a great nation." And we're told "God was with the boy as he grew up." (21:18,20) God had a marvelous plan for Hagar's future. Though she could have been voted "least likely in her class to succeed", God intended for her succession to continue to this very day.
Freed from Opinion's Tyranny: Overcoming in Christ
It's been said: "We are not what we think we are; we are not even what others think we are; we are what we think others think we are." All this second-guessing what others' opinion of us actually is can leave us tied up in knots. Doubts about esteem can be a harsher task-master than Sarai's mistreatment of her maidservant. The good news about Jesus is that whatever our failures or frailties and handicaps may be, by giving ourselves to Him we can become new creatures, totally acceptable to God (whose opinion is the one that finally matters anyway). In Colossians 3, Paul says that believers have died, and our life is now hidden with Christ in God. "Christ is your life", and we will appear with Him in glory, our identity is tied up with Him. "...you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, ...slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." (Colossians 3:9-11)
As God sees us, we're not stuck in our "uglies" or our dumbness, our disadvantaged background or those little addictions we've cobbled together to ease the pain of the dull routine; God sees the new, glorious person we're already morphing into in His Son, who is pure goodness and light and love. By faith and the Holy Spirit, we have Jesus right in us, so let no one despise us! This breaks the old patterns and helps us see ourselves in relation to other people in a new, helpful way.
For example, speaking to slaves later in chapter 3, Paul tells them to obey their masters with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord; not only when their eye is on them, but all the time, because they're working for the Lord, not for men. (Character is who you are when nobody's looking!) "It is the Lord Christ you are serving", and He will reward them with a lasting inheritance, besides holding their owners accountable. "Masters...you know that you also have a Master in heaven." (Col.3:23f; 4:1) God is noticing how the "nobodies" are being treated!
Dobson's book, Hide or Seek, lays out foundational principles based on the Bible that challenge the value system this world uses (beauty, intelligence, finances etc.) to compare and rank people while injuring their delicate sense of self-worth. He writes, "What does God value? ...1) devotion to God; 2) love for all mankind; 3) respect for authority; 4) obedience to divine commandments; 5) self-discipline and self-control; and 6) humbleness of spirit. These six concepts are from the hand of the Creator, Himself, and are absolutely valid and relevant for our lives. When applied, they encourage a child to seek out the opportunities in this world, rather than forcing him to hide in lonely isolation. They lead not to neuroticism and despair, as do man's values, but to emotional and physical health."
Dobson says, "I believe the most valuable contribution a parent can make to his child is to instill in him a genuine faith in God. What greater ego satisfaction could there be than knowing that the Creator of the Universe is acquainted with me, personally? That He values me more than the possessions of the entire world; that He understands my fears and my anxieties; that He reaches out to me in immeasurable love when no one else cares; that His only Son actually gave His life for me; that He can turn my liabilities into assets and my emptiness into fullness; that a better life follows this one, where the present handicaps and inadequacies will all be eliminated -- where earthly pain and suffering will be no more than a dim memory!...This is self-esteem at its richest, not dependent on the whims of birth or social judgment, or the cult of the superchild, but on divine decree." "If Jesus is now my brother, then that puts me in the family of God, and guarantees that I will outlive the universe itself. And that, friends, is what I call genuine self-esteem!"
With God's miraculous help, Hagar and her son Ishmael overcame humble beginnings to found a nation that continues to this day. God notices us, whatever our holdbacks, and seeks to draw us into the future of His blessing in our circumstances. A famous investigation of the home backgrounds of 400 highly successful people was made by V&M Goertzel and published under the title Cradles of Eminence. These were names we would recognize as brilliant or outstanding in their respective fields (Churchill, Gandhi, Schweitzer, Einstein, etc.). Surprisingly, 3/4 of the children were troubled - by poverty; a broken home; rejecting, overpossessive, estranged, or dominating parents; by financial ups and downs; by physical handicaps. In over 1/4 of the cases, handicaps were involved such as blindness, deafness, being crippled, sickly, homely, undersized, overweight, or having a speech defect. But that didn't stop these famous people; they didn't give up and blame their lack of success on their circumstances. It's very apparent that the need to compensate for their disadvantages was a major factor - perhaps the determining factor - in their struggle for personal achievement. God's mercy allowed them to overcome their liabilities; those who might have been classed as "nobodies" became "notables" instead.
In Christ, when we are weak, then we are strong: reliance on Jesus provides God's power an opportunity to act in our lives, and overcome whatever's eating away at our self-esteem. Repent and acknowledge your sins and need of Him, yes; cry out to Him as your only hope, like Hagar sobbing in the desert, yes; and allow Jesus to open your eyes to cope and embrace His future. Let's pray.