Losing Pulse

“When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes.  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” Gen 21:15-16.

I don’t know what is most difficult – knowing that something is going to be lost or actually losing it.  This was the case with Hagar when she and her son were banished from the home of Abram and Sarai.  She had not asked for this boy for she was just a maidservant in this home.  He was the result of the couple’s interference with God’s plan, but she had fallen in love with her son.  Now they were being asked to leave with nowhere to go and limited resources.  With the last drop of water given to her son she could see the writing on the wall.  No one lasts long out in the desert without water and they would surely be the next victims of the unforgiving land.  She could not bear to watch him breathe his final breath so she laid him under a tree and in despair walked nearby, sat down and bitterly wept.  Her fears seemed to be coming true and life would never be the same. 

We all have things in our lives that seem to be losing their pulse.  We can’t bear to see where the road seems to be taking us so we try to distract ourselves.  But there is no running away from our thoughts… our minds…our fears.  There lies our dreams, dried up and needing new life.  We count it as well as dead mourning what hasn’t even happened.   But blessedly where we see death God sees life, and where we feel the final breath of a dream God feels its quickening pulse.  ‘What is the matter…?  Do not be afraid; God has heard…’ Gen 21:17.

Whatever you perceive regarding what your future holds we must remember that God holds our future.