Genesis 16:7
And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
This is the first time the phrase the angel of the Lord appears in Scripture. The word angel simply means messenger. But this is no ordinary angel. Angels in Scripture refuse worship. This One does not. That is why the angel of the Lord is understood to be the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ appearing before His incarnation.
And I love where He shows up.
He does not appear here first to Abram. He does not come first to Sarai. He comes to Hagar. To a woman. To one who is hurting. To one who is running. To one who is out in the wilderness, away from the family she had been living among, sitting by a well with nowhere else to go. That is just like Jesus.
The text says the angel of the LORD found her.
That is such a beautiful phrase because it does not say Hagar found Him. It says He found her. She was not looking for a sermon. She was not out on some noble search for truth. She was running. She was wounded. She was trying to get away from the pain. But the Lord went after her anyway.
That is the heart of the Shepherd.
Jesus said in Luke 15:4 that the shepherd leaves the ninety and nine and goes after the one that is lost. And that is exactly what we see here. He goes after Hagar. He goes after the one sitting by the well in the wilderness. He goes after the one who feels forgotten, pushed aside, mistreated, and alone.
And He still does that.
So the person who feels like he has blown it the worst, the one who feels farthest away, the one who feels like everybody else has a place except him, that is not the person Jesus overlooks. That is often the very person He is moving toward. It would seem more efficient to stay with the ninety nine. It would seem more logical to focus on the strong and stable ones. But that is not the heart of our Lord.
He goes after the one.
He goes after Hagar.
He goes after you.
And I think that matters because there are seasons when we all end up by some kind of wilderness well. Maybe not physically, but inwardly. We are tired. We are confused. We are hurt. We are disappointed. We are trying to sort out the mess that sin and unbelief have made. And in those moments, the enemy loves to whisper that the Lord is finished with us.
But Genesis 16 says otherwise.
The Lord knows exactly where the wilderness is. He knows exactly where the well is. He knows exactly where the hurting soul is sitting. And He is not reluctant to go there. He is not hesitant to draw near. He is not embarrassed to pursue the one who ran.
He found her.
Those words are full of hope.
They tell us that Jesus is not only the God of the patriarchs, but the Savior who seeks the outcast. Not only the Lord of the covenant, but the Shepherd who pursues the wounded. Not only the Holy One enthroned in glory, but the compassionate Redeemer who meets a weeping woman in the desert.
That is our Lord.