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Where Are You Going And Where Are You Coming From?
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November 8, 2022
One of the most important questions we all need to answer is “Where are we going and where have we come from. A clear and defined future plan is necessary otherwise the winds of life will move us in directions we, otherwise, might not have chosen. And without discerning our past, we often make the same mistakes going forward.
All of our life decisions should be carefully thought out. We need a well laid-out plan for our future along with the self-awareness of where we have come from; that self-awareness becomes our guide in planning our life’s course. God said to Hosea that my people die for lack of knowledge.
In Genesis 16 we read about Sarah who couldn’t have any children so she gave her servant Hagar to her husband, Abraham as his 2nd wife. Hagar became pregnant and as you could imagine Sarah was very envious and began to mistreat her.
Hagar ran away and she found herself resting by a spring of water in the wilderness. An angel appeared to her and he said, Hagar, Sarah’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?”
Hagar replied, I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarah.”
Then the angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly so that they will be too many to count.”
Greatly encouraged Hagar named that place Beer Lahai Roi which means The Lord sees me.
It always struck me as odd that the eternal God would ask questions of which He already knew the answer. Like Hagar, God knows you and I well enough to correctly discern our future and our past. God sees you and me, but not in a superficial way. He knows what makes us tick and he discerns the thoughts and intents of our hearts. He understands our hidden and obscure ways completely.
The problem with us is we often don’t understand what motivates us to move in certain directions or why we act in certain ways. It’s our job to figure that out! So God asks questions.
God is not the great answerer instead he seems, to me, to be the great questioner. In the Old Testament God is often seen asking questions. Jesus, himself, asked 307 questions and was asked 183 and answers fewer than 10. I see the family resemblance. Like Father like Son. God wants us to ponder the answers. To dig deep.
The great philosopher Socrates taught his students similarly.
If we want cheap answers, then going to God is the wrong place to find them. The world has plenty of cheap-fix answers. Hagar’s answers required her to find them while being in a pretty tough situation.
Similarly, our answers require time. We need to pray, read scripture and we need to ask for the grace of discernment. God does not move on our time table but the answers we seek will eventually come to us as we ask for His wisdom and guidance.
If we are persistent, those questions we have will lead us on a journey. I see God as the leader of a fantastic expedition of which I am a part of. That journey is one of self-discovery and a deeper understanding of who He is.
Don’t expect to find your answers without an investment of time. God is quite specific and clear. The problem with us is we haven’t taken the time to learn his language. He speaks in a way that we don’t easily grasp but his nuanced and often variegated tone is one we can all learn.
Where are you heading?
Where have you come from?
The God that see’s you knows the answer, do you?