Spring of Water

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

SPRINGS OF WATER

Gen 21:14-21

14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob. 17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation." 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

NIV

Another intervention by God, another miracle as God continues to work in the lives of people. However, we find it a bit strange that an almost twenty-year-old boy would be crying. We know that Abraham was eighty-six when Ishmael was born to Hagar, and he was one hundred when Isaac was born to Sarah. We do not know how time had elapsed before Sarah insisted Hagar be sent away. But we know it was after Isaac was weaned which in those days he could have been between three and five years old. So here is Ishmael since called a boy at near twenty and he was crying. The Hebrew word translated as boy has a direct meaning of someone born, offspring, a lad, son, a young man. We would think that at that age he should have been looking after his mother instead of her thinking he was going to die because he was crying due to the water running out and they were sent away to wander on their own. But God sent an angel to Hagar and opened her eyes to see a well of water. It could be possible that God provided a well of water where there was not a well of water. God opened or may it be possible for her to observe this well of water. Either way, this is once again, God doing what man cannot do for themselves. We also see the compassion of God, at least that is what appears to be, as he responds to the crying of Ishmael. Once again, proof that God hears our appeals, our cries for help, our outpouring, even tears for relief for a situation that seems hopeless, that we or anyone else cannot do by our own abilities. Before God opened her eyes she could not see there was a well, if there was one. But when God moves in our lives, he does the miraculous, he provides water. This could also be symbolic of providing water as Jesus is the spring of living water. As that well of water refreshed Hagar and Ishmael giving life, where death may have been imminent, Jesus refreshes our spirits, and our souls, and gives us this living water that overflows from within us, so that we have life where before we knew Jesus, death would have taken us. Let us always drink from this spring of living water, filling our lives with Jesus. However, the other interesting truth, is that God opened her eyes, and as we sing, “Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus, reach out and touch him, say that we love him, open our ears, Lord, help us to listen, open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus.