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     The scripture today from Genesis has all the makings of soap opera!  Abraham wonders how God is going to keep the promise about Abraham's descendants being as numerous as the dust when Sara has not conceived any children and is now seemingly past the age for it.  Sara (her name will be changed from "Sarai") decides on a solution that results in misery for Abraham, Sara and Hagar!  She tells Abraham to take Hagar as a concubine and create descendants through her.  When Abraham does just what she suggests, the successful result leads to Hagar looking on Sara with disdain!  Sara blames Abraham!  He says, "She's not MY maid!"  Sara makes life miserable for Hagar and Hagar runs away.  Her situation is desperate.  She's a slave, pregnant, and out in the desert alone (except for Ishmael inside her)!  Then God intervenes as part of the bigger plan and the angel comes and asks that wonderful but very poignant and profound question:  "Hagar, maid of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?"  The matter is somewhat resolved but not completely by the eventual pregnancy of Sara with Isaac.  Ishmael goes off to start his own "nation."  Isaac becomes the heir to the promise.  Yet, the followers of Islam regard Ishmael as a spiritual ancestor!  The story is still with us! 

     What I call "Hagar's Question" - "Where have you come from and where are you going?" - to be one that all of us can ask when life gets very messy and everyone loses the broader perspective.  Sometimes our efforts seem to create a misery greater than the one we are trying to relieve!  Our trust that God will bring good out of a desperate situation can be easily eroded by the scope of the problem (a natural disaster, a civil war, a plague, famine, or personal circumstances that seem overwhelming).   We may have to take a deep breath and ask Hagar's question so that we do not lose faith.  It may mean that like Hagar we may have to live with less than desirable circumstances for awhile in the name of a greater goal (the destiny of both Isaac and Ishmael in God's plan).  We may have to pray that our response to Hagar's question will show us how we are both part of the problem and part of the solution.  This is how God's wisdom guides us.  AMEN