I have names I call myself. They are not my given names, rather they are those that I have identified deep within that I respond to on an emotional level. They are the names of my insecurities.
I was no. four of seven kids. My Mum and Dad were busy raising us and providing for us. I was small in stature and I was shy. I was a small girl from a small town with a small girl mentality. Conversation with others was difficult and uncomfortable for me, and in response, I would make myself small so that I would not be noticed. I didn’t know what to say to people and all too often when I did say something, I felt like I made a fool of myself because my words didn’t come out right. My insecurities shouted, Small! Insignificant! Unnoticed! Never amount to much! – Hide!
I am a work in progress. Who I was is not who I am now. God is doing a redeeming work within, and because His love is perfect, He keeps redeeming, restoring, reclaiming, and renewing me and will do so until love’s work completes me Philippians 1:6, where the old is gone and the new has come 2 Corinthians 5:17. Gone will be the names from fear, and lies that I have bought into, and the voices inside that speak into my insecurities, and within, will be something new: the renaming of me.
The hidden names I have had for myself, Small! Insignificant! Unnoticed! Never amount to much! Hide! have not been small or insignificant on the inside of me. They have spoken loud within, carrying huge weight in the way they have influenced the things I do, the places I go, and the capacity and energy I have. These are not names God has given me. Rather, from the beginning of time, I have been known to God as Very Good, Beloved, Delighted, Belong, Included, and many others.
There is a story in
Hagar was a handmaiden to Sarah, in other words, she was Sarah’s slave. She was Egyptian. It is possible that Hagar had belonged to Pharaoh, and who had been given to Sarah when Pharaoh told Abraham to take his wife and all he owned and leave Egypt.
Sarah had no children and could not conceive. In the manner of their times, she gave Hagar to her husband Abraham, to bear a child for her. Things turned out badly for them all. Hagar, the slave-wife taunted Sarah when she became pregnant, and Sarah became jealous and mistreated Hagar. They both acted out of the pain of their heart.
Hagar was away from her familiar home, culture, and ways. Everything was foreign to her. She was mistreated. But the greatest of all, she was owned! It became a powerful identity that she bore. She had no choices, no rights, no dreams, no hopes, and no freedom of her own. She was the property of another, Sarah. The text describes to us the ownership that Sarah had over Hagar – it says Sarah “took her…and gave her” to Abraham Genesis 16:3, and when things went wrong Abraham responded, “your slave is in your hands…do with her whatever you think is best” Genesis 16:6. Sarah took Hagar and gave her to her husband Abraham as his wife, for the purpose of bearing a child, the child that Sarah could not have. There was to be no intimate relationship other than the physical act of sex, “Go sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her” Genesis 16:2.
Hagar’s name means, take flight or to flee! These words described in this context meant, to bolt, to escape, to run away, to bail out, to quit. Hagar lived up to her name. She became pregnant, as was the plan. She was just a pawn in this warped plan of Sarah’s, but Hagar got haughty and proud that she could bear the child Sarah could not, and in Sarah’s jealousy, she mistreated Hagar. True to her name and her identity, Hagar fled into the desert – she ran away Genesis 16:6.
God’s love encounters Hagar, “The angel of the Lord found Hagar” Genesis 16:7.
God found her. He had never lost her. He had never left her. His mercy, grace, and love for her couldn’t help but see her. He was moved by great compassion and pity for her. But He let her know she was found by Him. A theologian I read says this, “It is a great mercy to be stopped in a sinful way [or path of brokenness] either by conscience or by providence” Matthew Henry. In other words, it is a great mercy to be found by God when we find ourselves having got lost in the ruin and brokenness of our lives.
“Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” God addresses her by her two names, her two identities: Hagar, To Flee, and, Slave of Sarai. He does something significant and He renames her. By doing so, He gives her a new identity, “then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her” Genesis 16:9.
To her name Hagar, God said, no longer will you be called To Flee. “Go back to your mistress!” Return! Stay. Face up. Put down your roots. Hang in there. Stop running away. It was a new identity.
To her name Slave, He said she would no longer be owned, “Submit to her”. The word, (or name) here Submit, is very different to, Slave. Submit means you choose or you control your actions, rather than to be controlled or owned. Things were different now. God had found her. He had seen her brokenness and He told her He was with her. She could submit and obey out of love for God, the One who had compassion on her, instead of slavery to Sarah. The Sovereign God, in control and command of all the Universe, meets Hagar a lowly slave girl in her place of desperation, and He gives her a new identity, a new name.
God tells Hagar to name her son, Ishmael, God hears. This was symbolic of God having heard her there in her desperate place. And Hagar does something symbolic in return. She gives God a name. Out of deep gratitude, she calls Him, Beer Lahai Roi, meaning God sees me or I have seen the God who sees me. God found me, He sees all of me, He knows me, He heard me, and was compassionate to me.
The second part of Hagar’s story is in Chapter 21of Genesis. There is always another chapter in life with new challenges and new hurts –
Sarah miraculously has a son in her old age. She refuses to allow Ishmael to share in any inheritance – property, title, or status – that would be Isaac’s. “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac” Genesis 21:10.
Hagar’s two old names resurface – Sarah said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son…” Though Hagar found herself with the new identity and names God had given her, Sarah tried to keep her imprisoned in the identity and hold of her old names.
Owned – Sarah calls her “that slave woman”.
To Flee – Sarah tells Abraham to “get rid of her”.
Instead of running away, this time Hagar is sent away, got rid of, banished, finding herself once again in flight, “She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes” Genesis 21:15.
Hagar finds herself in the desert, again!
“Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die and as she sat there, she began to sob” Genesis 21:16. We can be certain that it was the kind of sobbing that was not quiet or done in any kind of gracious way. It was not just the dab of a tear with a gloved hand and handkerchief – Hagar wept uncontrollable convulsive gasps, her eyes streaming tears, her nose running profusely. She was desperate, without hope, and in great distress. Death was the only way out for her and her son, Ishmael, God hears.
It seems like once we have met God and He gives us a new name and a new identity, that we should have no business going back to that part of our life again…no business taking on that old name again. But we do. Like it’s a default, a bad habit, getting tripped up in the ruin and temptation of our old life, again. We need God to persist with us, moving us ever towards His perfect love because, without it, we just fall back to our own ways, our old names and our old identities shrouded in fear, lies, and insecurity. From Hagar’s story, what we need to remember for our own, is that what God starts in us, He continues until it is completed.
Ishmael meant God hears. Hagar knew and experienced that. For 10 years when Hagar went back to Sarah after her first time lost in the wilderness, she called her son God hears. How could she have forgotten that God hears? Every day, every time she called her son, she called out God hears.
“God hears, come for dinner”
“God hears, do your chores”
“God hears, time for bed”
God hears. God hears. God hears. His name, Ishmael, God hears, was a constant reminder to her that God hears. God heard her when she found herself in the desert, and in compassion, answered her cry. Instead of returning to her old name and her old identity – To Flee – she could’ve asked God when she was to be sent away, Where will You lead me? My life is Yours, I belong to You, guide us where You want us to go. But, she resorts to her old identity and flees to the desert, again.
True to love, God finds her, again!
“Oh God, so great is Your love for this ruined humanity! How persistent is Your love! How compassionate You are toward us! You hear, again! Without again kind of love, we would be left in our ruin. The word, again, is precious. We need Your unfailing love, persistence, and patience towards us. You show love to us again and again and again.”
God gives Hagar and Ishmael what they need. Thinking they were about to die in the desert, God opens Hagar’s eyes to see the water. He meets their thirst. The water, the well, was there the whole time! In her desperation, Hagar couldn’t see it. She was blinded by her desperate plight, by her here we go again, things will never be different, owned, flee, mentality. God takes away her fear. He makes promises to her again. Again! And, He addresses once and for all, her name, Slave. This time being sent away was one of the best things that could’ve happened to Hagar. She was no longer a slave. No longer owned. She started a new life. Became the mother of a great nation of people. She never went back to Sarah Genesis 21:17-21.
Again and again, I find myself back living in the same old way. I feel like, though it is not true, that God must get sick of me and want to shake me and say “you have no business going back there, “If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation, the old has gone”. But instead, He hears me, again and again. He meets my needs, again. He makes promises to me, again.
A battle seems to rage within: God does something new in me. He gives me a new identity. He renames me, but often I find myself back in the same old place again: insecure, ruined. I have heard His Spirit speak to my heart saying,
You shall no longer be called small, and never amount to anything. You shall be called Able and Big things, “I am able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than you could ever ask or think” Ephesians 3:20. I can do more and be more and achieve more because perfect love does that in me and for me. It removes insecurities and fears and releases me to be all I was designed to be.
You shall no longer be called hide, or unnoticed, instead, you shall be called Courage, for “I will be with you” Matthew 28:20 and “all things are possible with Me” Matthew 19:26.
You shall no longer be called “never amount to much or insignificant”. You shall be called Confident and Competent, “Confidence is ours through Christ…not that we are competent in ourselves …but our competence comes from God” 2 Corinthians 3:5. But inevitably, I find myself back in that place, the place of my old names and old insecurities, yet here He meets me, lovingly, patiently, persistently, again and again and again, and will continue to do so until I am complete.
There is one name that God has called me that I love and cherish the most. It does something special within me. With it there is the wonder of, could it be true? It’s the name I always long to hear. God gives me this name, presents it as a gift. As with Israel, so it is with me –
“You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you”
I am called by this name. Though I live ruined, broken, lost, fearful of love, I am not called Deserted, nor am I called Desolate. God calls me Hephzibah. Delight. He looks at me, sees me, knows me, and He says, I delight in You. How can that be? He takes this fearful-of-love girl that I am and He makes me His own. He includes me in the intimate oneness and union that He has as Father, Son, and Spirit, calling me His bride, Beulah, rejoicing, rejoicing over me! His love for me continues and works and persists and renames and changes and transforms, over and over, until I am called Complete.
Continued in next week’s blog…
3 replies on “Hello, my name is…”
Cool Lorraine, thanks.
Great post. Reinforces what I said a number of years ago…you are a gifted communicator.
Thanks, Gus for your encouraging words!