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FREEDOM TO HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

In today’s context, it may seem like getting fired was the best thing that could have happened to Hagar. Good riddance! Abraham and Sarah didn’t deserve her anyway. But we only think that way because we are not slaves of our employers anymore.

In Hagar’s time, a female slave could only be dismissed if her father bought her back (Exodus 21). But if there were no family members who were willing, a foreigner could not buy her. “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as men. If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her” (v. 7-8, NLT).

So Hagar was fired off the books. On paper, she was still the property of Abraham and Sarah, but she was not allowed to work for them or anyone else. And to put the cherry on top, the son she gave them would not inherit a cent of their wealth (Genesis 21:10). Not exactly a bright future lying ahead for Hagar and Ishmael, was it? “Then he sent her away with their son, and she wandered aimlessly in the wilderness of Beersheba (v. 14, NLT).

God obviously looked after Hagar and Ishmael while they lived in the wilderness (Genesis 21:19-20). But the fact remains that they were confined to life in the wilderness until Ishmael was a grown man. “He became a skillful archer, and he settled in the wilderness of Paran” (v. 20-21, NLT). There was no hope for a future outside of slavery.

The same thing happens to us when we become slaves of the world and its sinful desires. We get so caught up in being owned by our circumstances that we don’t even dare hope for a better future. It simply looks impossible and we start wandering through life aimlessly. Until we find freedom in Christ.

The freedom that Jesus bought for us on the cross brings hope for a future that goes way beyond our lives here on earth. “And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world” (1 Corinthians 15:19, NLT). We are no longer slaves of any circumstance that keeps us captive to the challenges of this life. We are free to have hope for a bright future that was guaranteed by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. “... we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, will be revealed” (Titus 2:13, NLT).

Are you currently in a season of aimless wandering in the wilderness? Do you think that slavery to sin or something else of this world may be at the root of your lack of hope for the future?

Let us embrace the freedom of having sustainable hope for the future in Christ. And let us break free from living aimlessly as slaves of our current circumstances. “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, NLT).