I don’t have a lot to say about this week’s reading from Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and Beth Clark. I encourage you to check out my friends’ posts over at Connecting to Impact.
When watching over a little girl dying from malaria, Katie wrestles with the poverty and disease right before her while remembering the luxury and comfort she left behind in the United States. Katie writes, “My heart began to break over and over for the other children around the world who had no one to protect them, no one to speak up for them, no one to sit up with them at night and control their fevers. Who would hold them? Who would sing to them?” (pg 70)
Dare I be so bold to say that Katie is wrong? God makes it clear in His Word that He is the ultimate advocate for the poor, the hopeless, and the forgotten. And as Katie herself admits in this chapter, it was He who put her right in that place for His purpose.
When I read this chapter, my mind went right to the story of Hagar from Genesis. Long story short, God promised a child to Abraham and Sarah but didn’t say when. Impatient, Abraham lays with his servant, Hagar and she bears him a son, Ishmael. Fearing for her life she flees. We pick up the story in verse 7 from Genesis 16:
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.”
The angel of the LORD also said to her:
“You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the LORD has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. (Genesis 16:7-15)
Two important Hebrew words in this story. One, the name of Hagar’s newborn son, Ishmael means “God hears” and El Roi, for whom she named the well after, means “The God who sees”. Hagar was all alone and afraid. She was rejected, who would advocate for her? The God who sees, that’s who. Later when she goes her own way, leaving Abraham and Sarah, she wanders the desert expecting to starve and die. Again, the God who hears intervenes.
No need on this earth is unknown to the Lord of Hosts. And we are put exactly where we are for His specific purpose. Pray and ask the God who sees and He who hears, to open your eyes and ears to the needs around you that you, and you alone, can meet.
This blog is part of a book club reading Kisses from Katie. Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter are leading the discussion. Head over to their blogs for more.
This chapter especially seemed to include lots of examples that I would say "show Katie's age." I would read things and think "huh?" But I really like how you broke things down here. He is the Advocate and He moves His people with compassion when we will move to the sway of the Holy Spirit and that divine, boundless love. Thanks so much for adding to the discussion, Frank.