上帝以慈爱的眼光看顾我们每一个人。

夏甲就称那对她说话的耶和华为“看顾人的上帝”。-创世记16章13节

圣经学者莱特博士（Christopher J. H. Wright）在《我不理解的上帝》一书中提到，最早为上帝设立名号的其中一人，竟是身分卑微的使女夏甲。

夏甲的故事可说是人性的真实写照。上帝应许要给亚伯兰和撒莱一个儿子，但多年后他们依然没有子女。撒莱年纪愈大就愈急切，于是，撒莱就“帮助”上帝，随从当时的风俗，将婢女夏甲给了亚伯兰，让她怀了身孕。

当然，不久就有了冲突，撒莱开始苦待夏甲。夏甲独自逃到旷野，有上帝的使者对她说：“我必使你的后裔极其繁多，甚至不可胜数” (创世记16章10节) ，这个应许竟与上帝赐给亚伯兰的应许十分雷同 (15章5节) 。上帝的使者将夏甲所生的儿子起名为以实玛利，就是“上帝听见”的意思 (16章11节) 。夏甲之前所敬拜的是眼不能看、耳不能听的偶像，所以她就称那对她说话的上帝为“看顾人的上帝” (13节) 。

不论是满心急切的主母或无助的婢女，这位“看顾人的上帝”皆都看顾。祂是富翁和名流权贵的上帝，也是贫困和孤单无依者的上帝。祂倾听我们的祷告，看顾我们的需要，对于我们的遭遇感同身受，祂深切地关心我们每一个人。

主啊，圣经真实记载了前人的言行，即使他们做错事，
祢依然爱他们，祢对我们也是一样。
祢深知我们的言行，我们纵有万般不是，仍能投靠祢。

God sees us with eyes of compassion.

I have now seen the One who sees me. Genesis 16:13

In his book The God I Don’t Understand, Christopher Wright observes that an unlikely person is one of the first to give God a name. It’s Hagar!

Hagar’s story provides a disturbingly honest look at human history. It’s been years since God told Abram and Sarai they would have a son, and Sarai has only grown older and more impatient. In order to “help” God, she resorts to a custom of the day. She gives her slave, Hagar, to her husband, and Hagar becomes pregnant.

Predictably, dissension arises. Sarai mistreats Hagar, who runs away. Alone in the desert, she meets the angel of the Lord, who makes a promise strikingly similar to one God had made earlier—to Abram (see Gen. 15:5). “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count” (16:10). The angel names Hagar’s son Ishmael, which means “God hears” (v. 11). In response, this slave from a culture with multiple gods that could neither see nor hear gives God the name “You are the God who sees me” (v. 13).

“The God who sees us” is the God of impatient heroes and powerless runaways. He’s the God of the wealthy and well-connected as well as the destitute and lonely. He hears and sees and cares, achingly and deeply, for each of us.

Lord, You didn’t sugarcoat the story of Your people in the Bible and yet You loved them—as You love us—in spite of all the dirt and drama. You are the God who sees us, and yet we can still run to You.

Genesis 16:1-13New International Version (NIV)

Hagar and Ishmael

16 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.

7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

11 The angel of the Lord also said to her:

“You are now pregnant
    and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,[a]
    for the Lord has heard of your misery.
12 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[b] all his brothers.”

13 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[c] the One who sees me.”

整理：于姊妹