Hagar and Humility

God has really been teaching me about pride and humility. One comes so naturally and invades every aspect of your being, while the latter is unnatural and difficult to practice. 
Here are a few things the Bible says about humility:

"When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." ~Proverbs 11:2

"Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD's anger."

~Zepheniah 2:3

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

~Philippians 2:3-4

Keeping that in mind, here is an overview of the story of Hagar/Sarah/Abraham. God told Abraham he was going to bless him with a son, and make him the father of many nations. Abraham was old. Really old. It was unbelievable to think he and his wife would be able to conceive a son together. Sarah told Abraham to take her maidservant Hagar, as a concubine in hopes she would be able to give him a son. Abraham agreed to this (kind of important to note that this was not how God said things would happen, so in essence this plan was hatched out of doubt). When Hagar DID get pregnant, Sarah got angry and jealous. She then blamed Abraham for listening to her in the first place. Sarah mistreated Hagar, and Hagar ran away. 

So let's look at things from Hagar's perspective. At the wish of Sarah who was unable to conceive a child, she slept with Abraham. When she got pregnant, I suspect it gave her a sense of pride. The Bible says that she began to treat Sarah with contempt. After all, she was able to give Abraham something his own wife was unable to give him. All of a sudden, this person who was supposed to serve Sarah felt as if she was better than her. This (probably among other things) made Sarah very angry, & she mistreated her.  Then, this is what the Bible says:

"The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" 

      "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.

 Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."

So there is Hagar, alone and pregnant in the desert. She is angry. She is so angry that she left her source of food, and shelter (for her and her unborn child) and ran away to the desert. She did not have a place to go, she did not have a plan, and it was likely she would have died in the desert. 

But God met her there. He told her to go back to Sarah, and submit to her. He told her there was a plan for her life, and a plan for her child's life. 

When I first read this last night, my question was... why would God tell Hagar to go back to Sarah, especially considering that after Sarah gives birth to Isaac, she ends up sending Hagar and Ishmael away anyway? I think the answer is humility. Sarah was not right in mistreating Hagar, but Hagar was wrong to treat Sarah with contempt after becoming pregnant. She allowed pride to rule her emotions, which caused her to put herself and her child in danger.  Pride can make us do some crazy things. I wonder if Sarah would have continued to mistreat Hagar if she apologized for her attitude and submitted to her instead? 

Sometimes we complain about our unfair circumstances when in reality, an ego check is in order. Why do we think we deserve so much? Why do we hold others to a standard that we ourselves cannot obtain apart from the help of God Himself? 

I think it is so beautiful when Hagar says : "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."

How beautiful it is to serve a God who bends down on our level to truly see us? Through our tears, our pride, our anger, our frustration, and our sin. Only when we truly humble ourselves, can we see Him also.