The God Who Sees Me

In the ancient world, it was common practice for a wife to offer her handmaiden to her husband for the purpose of providing an heir.  This was the situation in which Hagar found herself when Sarai elected to speed up God's will.  The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.

Legally, Ishmael would have been considered Sarai's offspring.  Unfortunately, Hagar's attitude toward Sarai changed when she learned she'd conceived.  In return, Sarai treated her so poorly that Hagar fled.  In her despair in the midst of the desert, she encountered an angel of the Lord, who encouraged her with these words:

"Go back to your mistress, and submit to her.  I will so increase your descendants 

that they will be too numerous to count.  You are with child, and you will have a son.  

You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your misery."

So she [Hagar] called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, 

"You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me."  

Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi ["well of the Living One who sees me"] 

(Genesis 16:9-11, 13-14)

In her response to the angel's initial questions ("Where have you come from? Where are you going?"), Hagar only answered the first; for she truly had nowhere to go -- out in the desert alone and with child.  In her despair and amidst this encounter, she had a revelation that El Roi ("The God Who Sees Me") was still watching over her AND her child, also that He was not unaware of her current state of affairs.  With this confirmation that El Roi was aware of her situation and that He had promised to bless her offspring, Hagar found the courage to return to her mistress.  I'm sure her demeanor must have changed on that walk back to camp.  Though she left with a bowed head, surely, she returned with an encouraged spirit...a secret, perhaps.  "Hagar, what are you smiling about?" another servant might have asked. Would they have understood? For they hadn't seen El Roi as Hagar had.  Despite anything to come (being cast out after Isaac's birth), she would always remember the guaranteed blessing and His ever-present watchful care. 

"Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine" (Ps. 33:18-19).