How many of us grew up with both of our parents living under the same roof as us?
How many of us grew up in a home that was in poverty when we were a child?
While poverty does happen in homes that include both parents, about 5 and a
half percent, it is much more common in households where a single mother is
raising a family. About 23 percent of
households include children living with a single mother. And as of 2015 those households have a more
than 28 percent chance of living at or below the poverty level.
(https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-256.html)..
Single parent homes are not
a modern phenomenon. The Bible talks
about single parent homes, and we are shown examples of how God reaches out to
help single mom’s, and hears when they cry out to Him.
The first example I want to explore is that of Hagar.
Genesis 16:1-16 (All verses taken from NASB unless otherwise noted)
Now Sarai, Abram’s
wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was
Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from
bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children
through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 After Abram had lived
ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian,
her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. 4 He went in to Hagar,
and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was
despised in her sight. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done me be
upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had
conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what
is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her
presence.
7 Now the angel of
the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the
way to Shur. 8 He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and
where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my
mistress Sarai.” 9 Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your
mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” 10 Moreover, the angel of the
Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will
be too many to count.” 11 The angel of the Lord said to her further,
“Behold, you are
with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael,
Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. 12 “He will be a wild
donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone’s hand will be
against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers.”
13 Then she called
the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said,
“Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” 14 Therefore the well was
called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.
15 So Hagar bore
Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.
Hindsight is 20-20, so
people say. As I read these passages I
wonder why God didn’t lay out the whole story for Abraham and Sarah from the
start. We get piece meal in Genesis 12
(vss 2, 7) God told Abraham that He would make of him a great nation, and his
descendants would possess the land that God was showing him. Some time goes by, and Abraham asks God if
these things will take place since his legal heir is a foreigner. God tells Abraham that the current heir will
not be his heir, but it will be one that comes from Abraham’s body.
So, at some point after this reaffirmation of the promise to Abraham, Sarah
gets an idea. In their culture it wa
acceptable to offer up a slave as a surrogate wife to her husband, to give him
the heir he has been promised. It isn’t
until after Hagar conceives that God tells Abraham that Sarah will give birth
to the promised child, in Genesis 17.
As one commentary puts it, when it says Haggar became Abraham’s wife, the term
wife may not mean the same thing that you and I think of when we think of the
term. This is how the commentary describes
it.
“’Wife’ is here used to describe an inferior,
though not degrading, relation, in countries where polygamy prevails. In the
case of these female slaves, who are the personal property of his lady, being
purchased before her marriage or given as a special present to her, no one can
become the husband’s secondary wife without her mistress consent or permission.
This usage seems to have prevailed in patriarchal times; and Hagar, Sarai’s
slave, of whom she had the entire right of disposing, was given by her
mistress’ spontaneous offer, to be the secondary wife of Abram, in the hope of
obtaining the long-looked-for heir. (Jamieson,
R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory
on the Whole Bible (Vol. 1, p. 25). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems,
Inc.)
So, not only had Hagar been
taken from her land (Egypt), placed into service as a servant or slave, but now
–with no indication of her will—she is forced to marry her owner in hopes of
giving him what his wife cannot.
Genesis 16:3-6
3 After Abram had
lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the
Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. 4 He went in
to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her
mistress was despised in her sight. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong
done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she
had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and
me.” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her
what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from
her presence.
The Bible Knowledge
Commentary says that the situation “turned sour,
however, after the Egyptian slave girl, Hagar, became pregnant... Both women
may have wondered what would become of Abram’s seed. Would Hagar have it?
Because of the conflict between the women, Sarai blamed Abram for the problem.
He told her to handle it in whatever way she wished. Sarai then mistreated
(‘ānâh; see comment on this word in 15:13) Hagar so that she fled (16:6). (Ross,
A. P. (1985). Genesis. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible
Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, p. 56). Wheaton,
IL: Victor Books.)
Let’s look a little more at the customs of the day.
“In the legal
custom of that day a barren woman could give her maid to her husband as a wife,
and the child born of that union was regarded as the first wife’s child. If the
husband said to the slave-wife’s son, “You are my son,” then he was the adopted
son and heir. So Sarai’s suggestion was unobjectionable according to the
customs of that time.” (Ross).
So,
now that tensions are high in Abraham’s household, we see Hagar fleeing.
Genesis 16:7-11, 13, 15-16
7 Now the angel of the Lord found her by a
spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8 He said,
“Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And
she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” 9 Then the
angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to
her authority.” 10 Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly
multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” 11 The angel
of the Lord said to her further,
“Behold, you are
with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael,
Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction.
…
13 Then she called
the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said,
“Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?”
…
15 So Hagar bore
Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.
So, Hagar returned to
Abraham and Sarah’s house and lived there for many years. About 14 years later, Sarah gave birth to
Isaac. And after Isaac was weaned more
problems arose.
Genesis 21:9-14
9 Now Sarah saw
the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. 10
Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of
this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.” 11 The matter distressed
Abraham greatly because of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be
distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen
to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. 13 And of the son of
the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.” 14 So
Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave
them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her
away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.
“God used this
incident of Ishmael’s mocking Isaac to drive out the child Ishmael and Hagar
(v. 10), for they would be a threat to the promised seed. The word “mocking” is
meṣaḥēq (“laughing or jesting”), from which comes “Isaac” (yiṣḥāq). Earlier
Sarah had mistreated Hagar (16:6); now Hagar’s son was mistreating Sarah’s son.
Earlier Sarah caused pregnant Hagar to flee (16:6); now she caused Hagar and
her 16- or 17-year-old son to flee. (Ross)
Unlike in chapter 16, where
Abraham seemed dismissive towards Ishmael, now it distressed him when Sarah was
treating the boy and his mother harshly.
But God told Abraham not to be distressed, but to follow the advice of
Sarah and send Hagar and Ishmael away.
So, Abraham did just that.
As we saw earlier, God met
Hagar in her distress when she was pregnant, and now that they are out on their
own, God will meet her again.
Genesis 21:15-16
15 When the water
in the skin was used up, she left the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she
went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “Do not let
me see the boy die.” And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and
wept.
Can you imagine the feeling? Let’s recap
for a minute. Hagar was an
Egyptian. We aren’t told how, but she
wound up being a servant or slave and having to leave her homeland. When her mistress is unable to conceive, she
is forced to marry her master, and she conceives. When her mistress sees that she is pregnant,
she begins to treat her harshly—with the consent of her master and
husband. To escape the harsh treatment
she runs away. The angel of the Lord
comes to her, and tells her to return to Abraham and Sarah’s house, also
telling her that her descendants will be “too many to
count” (16:10). She returns and
her son is born. But when her son is 13,
her mistress gives birth to a son. At
some point after that, the problems arise again. Now, she is sent off by her husband and
master to basically fend for herself and for her son. And, when the water is gone, alone they sit
in the desert as she pleads with God to not make her watch her only son
die. Once again, God reached out to
Hagar.
Genesis 21:17-21
17 God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God
called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you,
Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. 18
Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great
nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and
she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink.
20 God was with
the lad, and he grew; and he lived in the wilderness and became an archer. 21
He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from
the land of Egypt.
God heard their cries, and
He provided for this single mom and her son.
The story of Hagar isn’t the
only case in which we see God reaching out to a single mom. We see another case in I Kings of a single mom
who is fearful that she will have to watch her son die of hunger or
thirst.
Wickedness was being
practiced in Israel, and God used the prophet Elijah to warn about the
wickedness. Elijah went to the king and
warned him that as a result of the wickedness, there would be no rain or dew in
the land until Elijah gave the word for it to do so again. But the effects of the drought was felt not
only by the wicked, but by Elijah and all others as well.
We pick up the story in I Kings 17:8
8 Then the word of
the Lord came to him, saying, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to
Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for
you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the
city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and said,
“Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” 11 As she was going
to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your
hand.” 12 But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a
handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am
gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we
may eat it and die.” 13 Then Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go, do as you
have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to
me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. 14 For thus
says the Lord God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor
shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the
face of the earth.’” 15 So she went and did according to the word of Elijah,
and she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The bowl of flour was
not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the
Lord which He spoke through Elijah.
It’s possible that this mom
was being overly dramatic when she explains that she planned to make a cake for
her and her son and then they would die.
However, it is also possible that it was the truth. In a land with no rain and no dew, plants
don’t grow. And when plants don’t grow,
food becomes scarce.
Yet, when given the opportunity to serve others, the widow did so and God
provided for her and her son.
I believe the Bible shows us
that God has a special place in His heart for those who have been discarded by
others, or who find themselves as orphans and widows. You can often tell what is important to
someone by how much they talk about something.
So, if we see a topic mentioned over and over again in the Bible, it
likely means that it is something God believes is important.
Here are just a few of the verses about orphans and widows.
Exodus 22:21-24
21 “You shall not
wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
22 You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. 23 If you afflict him at all, and
if he does cry out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; 24 and My anger will be
kindled, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows
and your children fatherless.
Deuteronomy 27:19
‘Cursed is he who
distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.’
Zechariah 7:8-10
Then the word of
the Lord came to Zechariah saying, 9 “Thus has the Lord of hosts said,
‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his
brother; 10 and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the
poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’
Psalm 146:9
The Lord protects
the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow,
But He thwarts the
way of the wicked.
Psalm 82:1-3
God takes His
stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers. 2 How long
will you judge unjustly And show partiality to the wicked? Selah. 3 Vindicate
the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.
Psalm 68:5 (ESV)
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
Psalm 10:16-18
The Lord is King
forever and ever; Nations have perished from His land. 17 O Lord, You have
heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will
incline Your ear 18 To vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, So that man who
is of the earth will no longer cause terror.
James 1:27
Pure and undefiled
religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and
widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Isaiah 1:16-17
“Wash yourselves,
make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do
evil, 17 Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the
orphan, Plead for the widow.
God hears the cries of the widows and the fatherless. And He calls on us to heed those cries as
well. If we truly believe that all
humans are created in the image of God, then when we dismiss the plight of
someone—maybe because we do not feel they are deserving of help because of
their own actions—we are doing that to Jesus Himself. That’s not my idea, but rather it was what
Jesus said.
In Matthew 25:34-46 Jesus
said one day all nations will gather before Him and He will judge them
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right,
‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me
something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a
stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and
you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous
will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty,
and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and
invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in
prison, and come to You?’ 40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say
to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even
the least of them, you did it to Me.’
41 “Then He will
also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal
fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry,
and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to
drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did
not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they
themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or
a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45
Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not
do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 These will go
away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
When we treat others the way
we would seek to treat Jesus, then whether it is a slave girl discarded by her
husband and master to fend for herself and her son, or a widow without food or
water for her child, we can be the hands and feet of Jesus towards the “least
of these.” And when we treat them the
way they should be treated, as those made in the image of God, then It is as if
we do it to Jesus.
How are we treating single
moms? When they cry out, are we willing
to listen to their cries the way that God does?
Are we willing to be the hands and feet of God to some of the “least of
these” who live next door, or down the street?
If not, what does that say about us?
