Anita Mathias | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

And Sarah Snorted. When our Faith Falters, But God’s Goodness Remains Constant

Arent de Gelder: God and the Angels visit Abraham


	Arent de Gelder 1645-1727

Three white-clad men walk out of the desert, out of the shimmering sands. Such is their calm and majesty that Abraham, the Patriarch, “very wealthy in silver and gold, sheep and cattle and camels and male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants” runs to meet them, bows low to the ground, and offers him his most lavish hospitality: a freshly slaughtered calf, yogurt and milk, and bread from the finest flour,

It is a theophany; Abraham sees the pre-incarnate Christ. Abraham sees God.

^“Then one of the men said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” (Gen 18:10)

* * *

And Sarah, listening at the entrance of her tent, out of sight, snorts.

Same old, same old, same old promises. The son, descendants, more of them than the stars in the sky and the grains of sand in the seashore.

Well, God, that sounds wonderfully poetic, but you know, as for me, here, in space and time, well, I could do with just one child. Is that too much to ask? Well, yes, apparently so!

I am weary of these promises. I am weary of hope. “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” she thinks. (Gen 18:12)

And Sarah snorts!

* * *

Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ ¹⁴Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18: 13-14)

But perhaps the Lord thought, “Yeah, I am with Sarah. I have tried their hope and faith and patience for long decades. Perhaps too long. I have given them a good life full of richness in the interim. I have blessed them in every other way, but I know their longing, their heartbeat. It is for a son. It is for Isaac.

I waited so long so that they would never doubt that Isaac was mine, and not theirs. Never fail to see my glory in this baby, Isaac. Never doubt Isaac was a miracle baby, my miracle ancestor, pre-figuring when I too would enter human history as a miracle baby, the greatest miracle of all.

But it is now time. Time for their miracle. Time for Isaac.”

“I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” (Gen 18: 14-15)

* * *

Ah, Sarah, how you blew it. Snorting at a theophany! Snorting at Christ and his angels! You’ve lost hope. The snake of bitterness curls around your heart. You no longer have the energy, the courage to hope, and who can blame you?

And then you lie, you lie to the Lord, who sees your heart.

But are you zapped, turned to a pillar of salt, as Lot’s wife was?

No, the Lord understood your longing, your disappointment, your frustration.

And despite your snort of laughter, your spontaneous lie, He reiterated his promise, no longer vague, but definite, “I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

And He did, and you did, and you called him Isaac, which means laughter. Your snort of derisive laughter was redeemed; it became the laughter of joy at your miracle baby.

* * *

And sometimes, our dreams seem disproportionately enormous, and our faith wavers, and the years pass, but our dreams, the promises we heard God whisper to us, the destiny we are born for, has not come to pass, and when we verbalize our dreams, we almost snort.

And how can you, Lord, bless someone who has so blown it, a sinner, whose faith has wavered?

But you do because you know our frame; you know we are but dust, and so though we do not deserve it, though we have blown it again and again, you come to us; you bring the destiny you have promised us to pass; you give us the child of promise whose name is laughter. You enjoy the pun, artist that you are, transforming the snort of sceptical laughter to laughter like a running brook.

A Richer Palette for Your Prayer Life: Martin Luther’s Advice ( A Guest Post by Gary Hansen, author of “Kneeling with Giants”

By Anita Mathias

I am honoured to host this post from Gary Neal Hansen, author of the marvellous book, Kneeling with Giants, in which he offers practical ways to apprentice ourselves to history’s great pray-ers, Benedict, Luther, Calvin, Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila, among others.

background-72245_640 Martin Luther, the catalyst of the Protestant Reformation, needed a shave. And his barber, like the one I had when I had hair, liked to talk. Master Peter the Barber’s question was something like “Dr. Luther tell me: how can I improve my prayer life?”

The sharp blade scraping his neck might have put some pressure on for a clever response, but Luther’s advice was the same as he gave to theologians, ministers and parents: “Pray the Lord’s Prayer.” His full answer came in a lengthy letter, a little book actually, translated as A Simple Way to Pray.

His passion for the Lord’s Prayer knew no bounds. In a preface to his Small Catechism he wrote that if ministers won’t make good use of it “we deserve not only to be given no food to eat, but also to have the dogs set upon us and to be pelted with horse manure.”

Well, Dr. Luther, tell us how you really feel.

Maybe you are thinking the same thing my students say whenever I teach about Luther’s way of praying: “But I already pray Luther’s way! We say the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday in church.”

For Luther, the Lord’s Prayer is not merely “a prayer” to be recited and be done with. The Lord’s Prayer is a list of topics that we are invited to pray about; commanded to pray about, actually. It is an artist’s palette, a full range of colours for our prayer life — more than the monochrome we find when guided by personal interests.

So how does Luther’s method really work? I say a lot about this in Kneeling with Giants but here’s the short version:

I recommend writing out the Lord’s prayer on an index card, no matter how well you know it. Hold it so your thumb is on the first line, and spend a few minutes talking to God about that first topic; then move your thumb to the next line and spend a few minutes on that; and so on.

What might you pray for in these almost too-familiar words?

Praying “Our Father in heaven” you can thank God for adopting you in Christ as a beloved child, and praise the mystery of God who dwells in light inaccessible.

Praying “Hallowed be your name” you can intercede for the Church and the world — God’s name is indeed holy already, but we ask God to help his glory be known.

Praying “Your kingdom come” we ask God to truly reign in our own lives, and in our families, and in our churches, and in all the world. God’s kingdom won’t be complete until he comes again, so here we also pray with the early Christians “Come Lord Jesus!”

Praying “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” can lead to confession: we all have ways of resisting God’s expressed will for us. This can also be a great tool for intercession: when praying for a sick friend we can remind God that the Gospels show Christ’s will is for healing.

Praying “Give us today our daily bread” reminds us to ask God for everything, even the food we eat — even if we don’t like to ask things for ourselves, here Jesus commands us to do so. And we can pray for the millions who do not have even bread to eat.

Praying “Forgive us our sins [or trespasses, or debts] as we forgive those who sin against us” reminds us to keep at the hard work of forgiving others, since we set up our own forgiveness as the standard by which we ask God to abide!

Praying “Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil” reminds us that we have struggles, whether inner weaknesses and temptations, or oppressive outer circumstances. We admit that we need God’s help to get through.

Luther did not comment on the familiar conclusion “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever,” but praying it we acknowledge that God has all the power needed to answer our prayers, and that what we really want in asking is God’s glory.

Luther always had a lot to say, however, about the final word, “Amen!” He said to pray it boldly, expressing the confidence that God has surely heard us and will surely answer.

There is not just one thing to pray for in any line of the Lord’s Prayer. Each clause can lead to praise, thanksgiving, confession, or intercession, as needed at the moment. Luther’s point is to pray all the parts, and let Jesus’ own prayer stretch us to bring God everything — even the things we usually forget to pray about.

You can pray through the whole prayer at a sitting, or follow Luther’s other suggestion and sticking to one line for your whole prayer time. One clause per day will bring you through the Lord’s Prayer once a week.

Luther is right about one thing: we need something to guide us into a richly-hued conversation with God. That’s why he thought this was Jesus’ very best prayer. As he put it once, “If he, the good and faithful Teacher, had known a better one, he would surely have taught us that too.”

Give it a try. Take a week or two and follow Luther’s advice. I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

Which line of the Lord’s Prayer is most important to you — and why?
What helps your conversation with God take on more and richer colours?

Gary Neal Hansen

Gary Neal Hansen is the Associate Professor of Church History at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. He is the author of Kneeling with Giants: Learning to Pray with History’s Best Teachers (InterVarsity Press: 2012), winner of Christian Resources Together’s “Devotional Book of the Year” in the UK, and Hearts and Minds Books “Best Book of the Year on Spirituality” in the US. His current book project explores movements in the history of the Church whose ways of being Christian community blossomed into effective mission and service in the world. He lives in Dubuque Iowa, USA with his wife and their two small children. (Blog: GaryNealHansen.com, Facebook page: Gary Neal Hansen, Twitter: @garynealhansen. Links to Kneeling with Giants (Amazon.com) and Kneeling with Giants (Amazon UK).)

“Do not Resist Evil;” One Way to Heal after Experiencing Evil

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. (Matthew 5 38-41).

Oh Jesus, how costly your words are.

Recently, when I’ve suffered actual or perceived injustice or annoyance, and have taken up the matter with Jesus, I’ve heard him say, “Let him.” “Let her.”

“Just don’t get entangled with evil, with resistance, with revenge. Let them do what they want to do. I am the ultimate score-keeer, the umpire, who will provide you another coat, and strength to walk the third mile on your own business after you’ve marched two miles carrying the Roman soldier’s gear.”

* * *

If we do not “let them,” if we plot revenge, if we put our emotional hooks in our enemy’s flesh, mentally dragging them behind us everywhere, we get embroiled in an endless tit-for-tat world of malice.

The principle of an eye for an eye, applied in the Code of Hammurabi, Judaism and Islam was neat, merciless, and there an end. But in our more sophisticated societies, what constitutes an eye for an eye is not so easily calculated. People extract revenge in all sorts of ways: gossip, slander, blocking, passive aggression, malice, and pettiness.

Sad for the victim, and sad too for the perpetrator—whose character becomes smaller and meaner and shrivels, becoming increasingly cut off from the waterfall of the grace and power of God. Once we put those who have wronged us on a mental blacklist, unconsciously ready to get even given a chance, we are no longer quite so open to God’s guidance; the presence of the Holy Spirit no longer pulses in our souls.

But what are we to do when we suffer injustice? Because we well might. The enemy of our souls stalks this world, twisting, corrupting, darkening. However, he plays against the Grandmaster who will, of course, ultimately win.

* * *

Let tell you a story of my initial failure and ultimate success in one of my encounters with evil. And about one way I have stumbled on to heal after experiencing evil.

Several years ago, I was wronged, unfairly treated, and humiliated. Because this happened at an extremely vulnerable point in my life, it precipitated an episode of “great sadness.”

A couple of years after that incident, through an unexpected turn of events, I got to “whistle-blow,”—I publicly pointed out a severe dereliction of duty on the part of the person who had unfairly treated me. They resigned from their relatively well-paid sinecurish job.

Quits, huh? This person furiously said to me, “Well, you’ve got your pound of flesh now, haven’t you?” And I childishly replied, “No, what you did to me was far worse.”

But yes, I had got my pound of flesh, plus. However, each time I remembered how I had been treated, my heart burned with indignation at the injustice and shaming. I wanted to do something about it, all over again. Though, I had already done something. As they said, I had had my pound of flesh. (And eating anger probably did add some pounds of flesh to my frame.)

We will never feel quits, never, because the memory of past wrongs feels fresh again. And at the “re-injury,” we again want to get even, though heck, we’ve already done so in so many petty soul-corrupting ways, damaging our souls, damaging our communion with Jesus, and with his sweet spirit.

* * *

And so for our protection, Jesus tells us not to even try to get even. But we are not to sit all tensed up saying, “I will not take revenge. I will not think of a pink elephant.”

There are other ways for the soul to heal. One is do good to those who have injured you. And what when our soul cannot yet stretch to that sublimity? When we cannot bring ourselves to do our enemies a good turn?

I am reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly. She quotes psychologist James Pennebaker who says that the act of not discussing a traumatic event or confiding it to another person could be more damaging than the actual event. Conversely, when people shared their stories and experiences, their physical health improved.

In his book Writing to Heal, Pennebaker says, “The act of writing about traumatic experience for as little as 15 or 20 minutes a day for three or four days can produce measurable changes in physical and mental health. Emotional writing can also affect people’s sleep habits, work efficiency, and how they connect with others.”

So then, I write my three morning pages about this particular episode which still made me feel outraged when I thought about it.

* * *

And as I write, I see it wholly, not just all the infuriating bits, but the whole chain of events, including my culpability.

In scripture, a turning point is often marked by the phrase, “But God.” And unexpectedly, God steps in. As I was able to see those disturbing events more clearly, I was also able to see the good God brought out of them.

He showed me that his loving kindness had been extended to me, though other people may have behaved out of insecurity, competitiveness, jealousy, malice or in a good old-fashioned power struggle. Augustine writes in his Confessions that his teachers acted towards him in malice or indifference, but God was working too, turning it to good.

I then had been leading and spear-heading something I shouldn’t have been because I was overwhelmed and beside myself in my personal life. I need to get my house in order, literally. I needed to get my business profitable. I need to stabilize my emotions. I needed more sleep, more rest. I needed to write, which I wasn’t doing at all. I needed the desert, which I so chafed against. I needed an Elijah experience of sleeping, eating and resting. I needed to see God in the wilderness like Hagar did. And I needed to emerge from it, strong, leaning on my beloved.

And through my enforced sojourn in the desert, forced on me by these people, I developed my latent entrepreneurial gifts. I established our family business, freeing me to focus on writing. I had time to establish my blog, slowly writing my way to a blogging style which speaks to people. I learnt soaking prayer. I became convinced of the deep love of God for me. My soul healed. And I cut all ties with those toxic people!

God was in the situation, the Grandmaster, putting me in a corner, to rest, to heal, to gather strength for the destiny he had in mind for me. The people who put me in the corner were also pawns in the grandmaster’s hand. Nothing happened to me but what He permitted; nothing, but what He turned to goodness and blessing for me.

Nothing, nothing, happens to you but what God has permitted. Nothing, nothing happens to you that God is unable to turn to good.

Do not resist an evil person. Do not get emotionally entangled with them. If they force you to march a mile, march it. If they take your cloak, shrug it off; let him have it. And then march free, your eyes on your Father, who can give you the cloak you need, the strength you need, whose eyes are on you, who can do anything, for whom nothing is too wonderful.

And Jesus, please give me the grace, if and when necessary, to live my own words—and Yours.

Over to you:

Have you experienced evil? How have you healed after that experience?

The Secret of Life (A Guest Post from Kelly Belmonte)

By Anita Mathias

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” ― Elie Wiesel

This is what I love about writing. Writers are so greedy for life, they live it three times: the first time in the flesh, the second on paper, and the third when they read what they wrote.

Writing is not only a greedy practice but a generous one. Beyond the third life of words, there ripples a wave of life as other readers take part in your original in-the-flesh moment. The writer’s magnanimity allows for this reliving.

You can’t be indifferent and be a writer. By living (and reliving) this life of words, the writer takes a stand against indifference. Each scribble is claiming, “This matters, and that matters, too.” It matters so much that I’m going to live it over and over again. It matters so much, I hope you live it with me.

***

I woke up on a morning recently when it was still the deep gray of pre-dawn. A nameless bird sang a tuneless melody of five tones: first three the same, followed by two that were both different, ending on the highest note. And then the bird would repeat it, over and over.

I lay there listening, not trying to understand. What’s to understand, except that this is a life and a song? This is not work, it is sabbath. The secret of life is in those sabbath moments of not having to be useful or successful or right or ever planning how not to be thirsty or afraid. It is in being fully alive – and not indifferent – to what is there before me.

I believe the poet e. e. cummings was on to something when he wrote poem number 53 that opens, “may my heart always be open to little / birds who are the secrets of living.”

***

In my non-sabbath time, when I am in full justification mode, having a reason for all my actions, I am what they call a “knowledge worker.” Perhaps that term is passé by now – I hope so. It basically means I get paid to know stuff, to understand stuff, to analyze stuff, and to somehow make decisions based on that stuff. Basically, I get paid to be right.

In the fresh wisdom of cummings – “…for whenever men are right, they are not young” – I get paid to be old.

And in this rightness – this oldness – there is a kind of indifference. We call it objectivity, but it’s a slippery slope to indifference.

By way of clarification, I do not mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with work, with hard work that makes us tired and long for rest, that aches our fingers, that makes us sweat (in mind and body). Such work is redemptive. Such work cracks us open to the secret of life, the meaning behind the job description.

And such work is rare, especially when we are old, or feeling old. It is nearly impossible when everything depends on our being right.

But if I were young (in my spirit, in my mind, my heart), perhaps I’d get paid to be wrong, to fail spectacularly – to make outlandish statements and extreme promises, to go to the edge of a concept and peer over it into unknowable possibility, to a place beyond simple declarations of right and wrong, to sing like a bird on a limb.

Perhaps I would be compensated for not being indifferent.

For me, this would serve as the perfect job description (a la cummings):

“Stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple.”

***

This noisy bird outside my window matters to me. I want you to hear those five tones. I want you to feel the soft heaviness of the deep gray of pre-dawn beneath flannel sheets.

And I want you to care about it. I want you to be “in on” the secret of life, and to love it.

If I can do that as a writer – care enough to prompt a caring in you – I have lived, and lived again.

***

Kelly Belmonte

Kelly Belmonte is a poet, blogger, and management consultant with expertise in non-profit organizational development and youth mentoring. She currently serves on the board of directors for Exeter Fine Crafts in Exeter, New Hampshire. Her first published book of poetry, Three Ways of Searching, is available through Finishing Line Press

Image Credit: BBC

A City Set on a Hill cannot be Hidden: Focus on Working, not Networking

By Anita Mathias

So you are going to build a city.

Dig its foundations deep. Pour the concrete. Design your buildings. It’s your city: Put in whatever you like—the Alhambra, the Hagia Sophia, the Sagrada Familia, the Parthenon. Throw in Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey.

Decorate your buildings as you wish—with the mosaics from Ravenna, or from the Topkapi Palacein Istanbul.

It’s your city. Put in the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists, Botticelli and Raphael. Have your floors inlaid marble from Florence. Have indoor fountains and reflecting pools where goldfish glide.

Throw in chandeliers and floor to ceiling windows. Let your city be full of light.

You are building your city on a hill. It cannot be hidden.

* * *

You will, in moments of lesser faith, read blogs on how to hustle, how to promote your city, how to network, make connections, build a platform.

Oh builder of cities, beware. All these things steal time and focus away from learning the art and craft of city building.

Instead, seek God for the perfect blueprint for your city. Seek his inspiration for each tower and spire, each inlaid marble floor, each wall hung with Persian carpets, and each Tiffany lamp through which light glows.

Unless love runs through your city, and the desire to meet people’s needs for beauty, joy, peace, wisdom or rest, all the promotion and hustling you do will be futile. Nobody will long linger there, buy property there, and stroll through the boulevards under shady lime trees, hand in hand with their lovers.

* * *

There is a kind of networking which is sheer joy—if you connect with people whose work you love, if you praise them honestly, interact with their work whole-heartedly, then you make friends, and this whole city-building business become more joyful.

However, flattering people for their attention; making connections for the good things these connections might bring you; befriending people to use them to promote your work—how can one ask God to bless such endeavours? Oh woman of God, flee these things.

There is a sort of hustling and self-promotion that is practical atheism. We act as if there is no God who can help people notice our city on a hill. We act as if God does not delight in good work and want people to enjoy it. We act as if God cannot even now give us twelve legions of those who will enjoy our work if we ask him. We forget the power of prayer.

And the worst thing about excessive self-promotion and connection-making? It devours the time and energy that should go into making your rare and beautiful city, set on a hill. So beautiful that at night, when the lights are switched on, and coloured fountains play, people cannot but look up and marvel; their feet itch, they yearn to walk up and explore.

And in spring, they will delight in walking through its gardens of cherry blossoms, and will sit under their shade, and look at the fields of daffodils, stretching as far as the eye can see.

* * *

Besides, the connections which matter will arise organically. Other builders of cities on hills will notice yours, and ask you managed that 150 metre spire without visible support, and you will talk about flying buttresses. And you will ask them what pigments they used for those impossibly large stained glass windows which flood their cathedrals with rainbowed light, and they will tell you.

* * *

God delights in your creativity. Build your city under his eye, as your worship to him, seeking his wisdom, in alignment with his stream of thoughts which outnumber the grains of sand on the seashore.

Let him smile, and say it is very good.

And as for the audience you’d love to have?

Remember, a city on a hill cannot be hidden. It glimmers during the day, and its light shines through the land at night.

When you’re waiting for the lightning and you miss the rain (A guest post from Kelli Woodford)

By Anita Mathias

Today’s guest poster, Kelli Woodford lives in the Midwest, with her husband and her seven blue-eyed children, and in the midst of it quietly chronicles grace on her blog The Chronicles of Grace

Confession: I hate prophetic posts.

My heart yearns for story. The subtlety of its events, the conflict and resolution, the intimacy of character development. Story tugs at the heart in surprising ways. Ways unimagined and unseen. And I would suggest, produces a deeper, lasting change on its hearers than a prophetic, calling-it-out word, because it engages more facets of the intricate design of the human being: it engages the heart. Prophetic posts just can’t touch that.

But I’m about to write one.

Because I need to remember my size.

So often I labor and get weary trying to wrap my mind around a concept. The abstractions of sin and salvation; the depths of human connection and multifaceted relationships; bigger and bigger the questions, rising from a mind filled with all things notional. Everything from law and grace to faith and deeds to mice and men. I read and research, fill my days with ponderings, bounce ideas off whoever comes to mind – and then suddenly the sun goes down (what?!? how did that happen!) and I realize how much I have missed.

It might be part of my personality, it might be an old addiction dying a hard death, it might be that idolatrous yearning for certainty that we all find comfort in. But there is no life like the one at my fingertips.

And By God, I’m going to enjoy it.

So I’ve put my hands in the dirt and wiped bottoms and made delicious pinterest-quality dinners, only to burn the edges. I’ve tossed a wiffle ball to my kids and run and tagged them and tripped on sticks and felt grass coming alive. Felt me coming alive. I’ve thrown open windows and sucked huge lungfuls of summer wind and fresh black earth, turned over in the fields around my house. I’ve sung loud, old hymns and Mumfords, shower water warm enough to ease the ache of holding up more than I can. Believing hard in grace and choice. I’ve scrubbed carpet stains and toilet bowls and felt the dry tightness of my finger tips that lingers after the bleach is back under the sink. And I’ve missed these things.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have done them all along. But doing them to get them done is different than doing them to relish the moments.

When my mind is afloat in matters too great for me, then I am not there with my kids in our rag-tag baseball game. I am not there to taste the west wind or hear my own voice off shower walls. I am not present for the moments of my life drifting humbly past while I surf the waves.

But, if there’s anything I hate more than a prophetic post (in which you find yourself elbow deep here), it is a guilt-trip post.

So I’ll not make this into that.

I will readily admit that there are times for big issues. There are moments when all the dailies must be abandoned in favor of the lightning bolt that just seared the snot out of my easy answers and left me scorched and smiling. There are times for study, and for prayer, and for solitude, and for mano-a-mano combat.

And there are times to cease.

For me, now is the latter.

Because when time and God have done their thing and I’m smelling the singe and wishing for more fire? I should hold the ash in my hand and call it a very holy thing. But not a predictable one. Perhaps the kind of dirt that rings a soul after an extended time in an ivory tower is harder to wash than a crusty toilet bowl. Perhaps it can only be sanitized by digging my bare digits into earth and pain and Velveeta and lilacs and the radical romance of everyday hope.

And when it’s time for this kind of soul-cleansing, I should walk into my bathroom, scrub brush in hand. I should walk into my yard, dragging the bat behind me. I should walk even into the church (eek!), armed only with love.

I should leave the wrangling words and the draining discussions and go out and plant a flower.

Then I should watch it grow.

: Kelli Woodford

I live in the midwestern U.S., surrounded by cornfields and love, with my husband and seven blue-eyed children. We laugh, we play, we fight, we mend; but we don’t do anything that even slightly resembles quiet. Unless it’s listening to our lives, which has proved to be the biggest challenge of them all.

I blog regularly-ish at Chronicles of Grace. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

The Secret History of Hagar: When God Invisibly Comforts the Oppressed

By Anita Mathias

Image: Tissot, Hagar and the Angel in the Desert

Hagar, Egyptian maidservant of Sarah, has a hard life. Impregnated, basically raped by Abraham, she is bullied and persecuted by a jealous Sarah—so much so that probable death in the desert feels preferable. (Genesis 16)

And in the desert, the runaway slave, with only the clothes on her back, sees the Lord.

And she returns to her mistress, who is “very wealthy in silver and gold, sheep and cattle and male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants and camels.”

The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. It sure seems as if Sarah has won and Hagar has lost, doesn’t it? Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

* * *

It is Hagar, not Sarah who sees “the Lord who sees me.” It is Hagar He advises. Hagar is promised not only life, but descendants too many to count. She goes back to Sarah, under the Lord’s protection, bearing his promises.

And Sarah knows nothing of this. Her maidservant has returned, that’s all she knows.

“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” Antoine St-Exupery wrote.

Our secret life with the Lord determines our happiness, and the course of our lives. It is, however, invisible.

* * *

I love the Bible, and I love teaching it. Last year, as I led a Bible study I said, “Ask and you shall receive,” “Give and it shall be given you,” nothing radical or reactionary, just word for word from the Sermon on the Mount. An academic in my group challenged me, “You say that because you live in the West. What about the starving people in Africa?”

And I asked, “Do you think everything Jesus said would not be as true and as valid in Africa as in Oxford, England?”

And an older, wiser woman, who has been to Africa on mission, numerous times, said, “Our African brothers are SO generous, and they have nothing.”

I am silent.

So are the righteous forsaken in Africa?

* * *

I am convinced that the same Gospel, the same promises are true for the world’s poorest as well as the world’s richest, but I am silent, because unlike Heidi Baker, who knows from experience that the same Gospel which is true in Southern California is true in Mozambique, I have not yet worked with the poorest people in Africa (though I have worked with the very poorest in India, with Mother Teresa, full time for 14 months, and hung out a little with the poor in Cambodia).

Hagar, the loser, ran away and came back starving. That’s what Sarah might have thought.

But the truth was that Hagar had been comforted by the pre-incarnate Christ himself, had received his promises, had returned at his command, and under his secret service protection.

We cannot say the Gospel does not work for the poorest because we do not know their secret encounters with God, the way he comforts him, the tenderness with which he looks at them, what he promises them in this life, or beyond. Certainly the way Christ looked at Hagar was so profoundly moving that that became her name for God—“ Lahai Roi. You are the one who sees me.” She is content to return to slavery and abuse because “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

God sees. God knows. At a difficult patch in my thirties, I was mentored by Lolly Dunlap. Discussing something difficult she went through, or I was currently going through, she would say, “God sees. God knows.” And sometimes, as it was with Hagar, that is enough. We are seen by the One who sees us. He has things in hand. He will bring about a kind of justice. The promises to Hagar mirror the promises to Abraham, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count,” (Gen 16:10).

* * *

The apparently forsaken Hagar has seen God, received divine consolation and a divine promise. She returned to abuse, strong in herself. Her eyes had seen God, and were watching God.

It comforts me. There is so much suffering in the world about which I can do little or nothing, so many stranded starfish on the beaches, gasping for the ocean.

Christ comforts us in our afflictions, and sometimes most deeply in our afflictions,

Father and Fondler of Heart Thou has Wrung

Hast thy dark descending and most are merciful then,

Gerard Manley Hopkins writes.

And, perhaps, most probably, just as he has his dark descending of comfort and mercy to Hagar, and to us, so too he descends to all the wretched of the earth.

* * *

At an Oxford party last week, I was talking to a World Vision Jerusalem worker, and mentioned I had been to Israel during the intifada in 1990. He said, “Oh, that was the easy time. The treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis is profoundly disturbing now. It’s very cruel.” He described it. I was in shock, in tears, in the middle of that 60^th birthday party.

Can I do anything about it? Well, yes, a little because I know Someone who can. Lahai Roi, the God who sees: Please comfort those children of Ishmael.

Other situations sadden and disturb me. The treatment of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, some of whom have been waterboarded 183 times in one month, and put into inhumane and humiliating stress positions for prolonged hours.

Those in North Korean prisons

The women flogged under Sharia law.

The Indian and Filipina domestic workers in the Gulf, who have their passports confiscated, work long hours, are physically and sexually abused, and are often not paid.

Bonded labourers in India whose debts are transferred from generation to generation at exorbitant interest.

Slaves in Mali or restaveks in Haiti among the 21 million slaves in the world.

The Afghani single women and widows forbidden to work by the Taliban who become almost catatonic in their depression.

Lahai Roi, God who sees, comfort them. Intervene.

While we do need to share our money wisely, (the Biblical suggestion of sharing 10% with priest, widows, orphans and aliens is a good one) and raise awareness, and pray, it is some comfort to me that not a sparrow falls but his eye is on it. Not a human suffers, but his eye is on them. And how he comforts them, what he whispers to them, what promises he makes to them, we do not know.

* * *

Hagar was neither a Christian nor a Jew, but her plight did not escape the eyes of the benevolent one who saw her. She went back to slavery and abuse apparently unaided, but, in fact, having had a secret encounter, received secret comfort and bearing a secret promise.

And the same God looks on the 21 million languishing in slavery, with the same blazing eyes of love and comfort. He sees. Perhaps he speaks to them in their hearts…

And so we commend the Hagars of this world to his protection, because we cannot do a whole lot more, because as we trust him in our afflictions, we must trust him in theirs, and pray that he will wipe every tear from their eyes, in this world, and in the world to come.

Amen.

In Which Our Lives Are Like Mandalas, a guest post by Holly Grantham

By Anita Mathias

I am so honoured to host Holly Grantham here, whom I first encountered through her gorgeous post, My Broken Hallelujah.

(Photo credit: Mandala by Luis Argerich on Flickr)

So, I have this son who, from the moment he was born, pulled my heart out into the open and now I walk around hoping and praying that the strings that hold it together, now threadbare and fuzzy, don’t come completely unraveled before each day is done. Mothering will do that to your heart, you know—wear it out and in and all around.

We’ve walked a path, he and I … one rife with curves and twists, shadows and light, knowing and unknowing.

And so, it was no small thing, in recent days, to walk with him to the edge of the forest and uncurl our finger locked hands for the first time. I kissed his dewy head, damp with apprehension and fear and excitement, and I hugged his squishy body, the one that always gives into my embrace like lungs do to air, and I said goodbye.

In that moment, I felt the lifeblood flow right out of me, pooling on the ground, while the sun caught its crimson blush and the light danced like a joy dare.

The days that followed would be more than tests of space and time—they would be like a great awakening … an opening to and an awareness of something deep and long and wide.

In his absence, I continued to walk paths, whether out of habit or compulsion or need, I’m not sure. My walking and my pacing and my fretting wore grooves in the casts of sunlight and pulled taught on strings laced with moonlight. My side of the week became this great carving out, wherein my prayers and fears fashioned a mandala, of sorts, and all of my hopes and worries for my son were drawn in the dust of each day.

In this lengthy separation I couldn’t help but marvel at the way life can surprise us so. That, even as we take clay in our hands and warm it with our touch, as we shape and mold it and dream of the shapes it will take and the forms it will embody, there is something else very much at work.

There is not one artist at work when sculpting a life.

As I wholeheartedly pour myself into my child and as much as that informs many of the lines and perimeters of his person, there is also this great expanse of heart space that is being wrought deep within. There are hidden places that have my fingerprints upon them, yes, but they are still being worked and kneaded and forged.

There are other hands at work.

In the days that came between me and my son, those hands were busy.

They arrived the first night in the middle of a thunderstorm. As the sky burst open in a shower of sparks and the clouds answered with booming shouts, words of peace and comfort found their way to my son’s heart. A hundred miles away, I cowered in the shadows, imagining the fear that might be stomping across the tender ground of his heart, all the while, in a canvas tent supported only by poles and wires, my son nestled down in the comfort of his sleeping bag, his arms encircling his beloved stuffed monkey, valiantly riding out the storm.

Those hands would take other forms throughout the whole of that week.

In a test of strength and endurance, my son would swim with new skill and budding power and his sweet reward would be to score higher than even some of the adults.

His legs would lengthen and his middle slim as he walked, mile upon mile, day after day, into lessons and discoveries and friendships.

But, perhaps, the greatest shaping would be revealed on the night I visited him. Apprehension curled around the edges of my resolve as I anticipated our parting at the end of the evening and the drive between hither and yon was riddled with script writing and the practice of separation, once again.

No one was more surprised than me when, upon seeing the more chiseled features of his face and the inches he had grown, my joy leaked liquid down my cheeks. And that boy of mine? His face simply cracked open and love burst through like glory come down.

For in the days that passed between us, those spaces that I had always taken up in his heart? Well, they had found some breathing room. Time and distance had managed to open windows deep within that had too long been fastened. And now there were fresh breezes where once the air had been stuffy and stale. Evidently, there was enough space for more than one Sun to shine in my sweet boy’s heart.

Our parting that night was bridged by tangled arms and warm embraces, soft kisses and whispered blessings. No, I didn’t want to leave him but I released him to the warm summer night and the twinkling of fireflies and to the faith that just as the moon rose and swelled on that eve of the summer solstice, my son was being rocked in the bosom of One bigger and greater than I.

This motherhood journey has a way of expanding heart space in more than just our children. A mother’s heart breaks open when her children are born and then she spends the rest of eternity trying to stay the love hemorrhage that ensues.

This exercise in letting go of my son has revealed much. I can see more clearly now that this raising of children is very much like a dance. There are steps to be taught and rhythms to learn and many times, there are bruised toes to accompany wounded pride. But there is value in the practice and joy in the twirling and there are few places where I have been more open to the choreography of God.

So, my son and I, we will clasp hands and swing arms, always. I can’t imagine a day when such will not be the case. But perhaps it is now time to let someone else take the lead. There is music playing and the floor is wide open. And we can’t help but step into the light and spin.

Holly Smothers Holly is a wife, very relaxed homeschooling mom of two boys (soon to be three), snapper of photos, coming of age writer and a soul drowning in grace. After years in Atlanta where she attended college, married the love of her life and lived in an intentional community, she found her way back to her home state of Missouri. She now lives in an antebellum stone house, raises chickens (sometimes) and pretends that she lives in the country.

Other places you can find her words are at her blog, A Lifetime of Days, and at SheLoves Magazine, where she is a weekly editor and monthly contributor.

Follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

anita.mathias