Genesis 16-17 | God Hears
“And you shall call his name Ishmael (God hears), because the LORD has heard your affliction.” ( Genesis 17 ) The history of Ishmael’s birth is a soapbox drama. Abram and Sarai had not had a child and were past childbearing. Sarai devises an “alternate plan” to give her handmaid, Hagar, to Abram to bear a child. When the child was born, Sarai became furiously jealous and began to treat Hagar harshly. So Hagar fled into the wilderness. It is there the “angel of the LORD” (which was Jesus Christ Himself) appeared to her and gave her a promise that it was alright and that God would use her son to build a nation also. She cried out to God (which is called “prayer”) and God heard and answered her prayer. We have no record of her spoken prayer, but merely the heart cry of her affliction. THE ENGAGEMENT OF GOD God made us and loves His creation. When we are in distress, in our sinfulness we turn to ourselves or others as the solution to our problem, with disastrous results. But when,