No Fear Required

Have you ever been faced with apparent absolute disaster?  Have you ever come to the end of the checkbook two weeks before the end of the month and still had at least two major bills to pay and milk to buy?  Has your car collapsed for the last and final time and there is no way to pay for a new one and no way to get to work without one?  Has disaster stared you in the face from five sides at once and there was nowhere to turn?  Then you understand today’s text.

“Then Hagar went and sat down across from him at a distance; for she said to herself, ‘Let me not see the death of the boy.’ So she sat opposite him, and lifted her voice and wept.”  (Gen 21:16)  She had lost her home.  She had lost her livelihood.  She had lost the father of her son.  She was about to lose her son.  Seemingly she had every right to be afraid, but God said, “Fear not.”  He was ahead of her fear.  He had a plan for her and for her son before she knew it.  To have a plan also means you have to have a provision to make that plan succeed.  Instead of dying of thirst there was a well of provision.  It was a well that was right in front of her but she had not seen it.  But God let her see the provision and sent her on her way for the plan He had in store. 

We can say that there was no fear required on Hagar’s part.  But she was human like the rest of us and the trouble of life blotted out a clear vision of the care and provision of God.  It could not, however, blot out God.  The God who asked, “Is there anything too hard for Me,” is still alive.  As the hymn writer said, “He is not dead nor doth He sleep.”  He is the God who hears us pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and takes that prayer to heart.  That is the God of grace who made the greatest provision for us.  There is a need we can never solve for ourselves.  That is the need to have our sins forgiven before a righteous and holy Judge.  God, the Almighty God, who showed the well to Hagar in the midst of a desert place, has shown the Fountain of Life to us in His Son.  Through His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, He has given to us a Fountain of Life that comes through His blood and radiates to every need of our life. 

William Cowper wrote, “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” 

A God provided fountain saved Hagar and His Fountain, Jesus Christ, will save us.

 

Visit my website at www.davidccraig.net for inspiring Christian books.  Coming this month is my newest book Taking Care of Joe.  This is the story of a caregiver for an Alzheimer’s patient.  See how God adds His grace in the face of this horrible disease and how living a life of love is living a life NOT interrupted.  You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at FEBC.org.  FEBC is a vital missionary outreach to many countries that are closed to traditional missionary work.