Called by Name

Take a moment to refresh, refocus, and refine your faith.

Genesis 16:1-6

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; ² so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”

⁶ “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

“Hagar! Come here!” 

Sarai’s voice pierced through the tent walls, startling the Egyptian servant girl as she lugged a heavy jar of water from the well back into camp, careful not to spill lest she be scolded yet again. 

“That isn’t my name,” I imagine her sighing. 

If she were to be constantly summoned, ordered, and chastised, couldn’t these people at least call her by the name she’d been raised with? Hagar, meaning “to flee” or “a stranger” in her owner’s Hebrew tongue, served as a cruel reminder that she didn’t belong. She was just a tool for their service. She had no agency, no identity, no dignity or importance to speak of. 

When Sarai grew impatient with God’s timing, it was Hagar who was handed over to Abram to bear his prophesied child. She was not in a position to refuse. And yet, when she conceived, nothing changed for the better. She remained invisible. Unheard. Unvalued. Eventually, the tension between the two women escalated until Hagar the slave could bear it no longer. Desperate, she fled into the desert, risking her and her unborn baby’s life–living up to her imposed name. 

But it sounded different in the desert, when the angel of the Lord called to her. Instead of sharpness, it rang with tenderness. No notes of disdain or dismissal, but rather compassion and concern. He saw her. He listened to her. And when he spoke her name, it was as if he bestowed a new identity to it–one of favor and promise. She may not have known this God before, let alone expected him to hear her, but now she was seen and listened to for the first time by him. More than that, he cared. And in return, she gave him a name: El Roi, “the God who sees me.” 

In a world that only demands from us–our time, money, affiliation, productivity, and attention–it can feel as though we’re just nameless, replaceable cogs in an indifferent machine. But God sees us. He hears and listens to us. He calls us tenderly by name. To be recognized by God is to be restored–to dignity, to purpose, to belonging. Like Hagar, we are not defined by what others call us, but by the name God speaks over us. 

Have you ever felt invisible or unheard?

What does it mean to you to be seen by God?