When you have reached the end of what you can see
Scripture: Genesis 21:14–19
There are mornings when faith feels strong.
And then there are mornings when you wake up and realise that you have reached the edge of what you know how to do.
This morning was one of those mornings for me.
I felt as though I had come to the end of my resources. Things around me had changed that I could not control. There were financial realities I could not simply wish away. Something God had given me a year ago — something that had become deeply precious to me — suddenly seemed as though I might have to surrender it because I could no longer see how to afford it.
And perhaps the hardest part was not even the money.
It was the powerlessness.
I had to get dressed and go to work carrying disappointment, hurt and the feeling that I had been wronged, while wondering whether I could still show up as the same person I had been yesterday.
And then I opened Genesis 21.
And there was Hagar.
When the water runs out
Hagar was in the wilderness with her son.
Abraham had given her bread and a skin of water, but eventually the water was gone.
That sentence is almost painfully simple.
The water was gone.
There was no reserve supply. No obvious alternative. No plan B.
And when Hagar could no longer bear to watch what she believed was going to happen to her child, she placed him under a shrub and moved some distance away.
“Let me not see the death of the child.”
— Genesis 21:16
Then she wept.
I wonder how many prayers begin there.
Not with beautiful words.
Not with confident declarations.
Just with the terrible recognition:
I don’t know what to do anymore.
There is something about Hagar’s wilderness that feels very familiar.
Sometimes we reach a place where we have calculated everything we know how to calculate. We have stretched what could be stretched. We have thought through every possibility we can see.
And still the water runs out.
But God heard
Then comes one of the most beautiful sentences in the story:
“And God heard the voice of the lad.”
— Genesis 21:17
Hagar thought she was sitting beside the ending.
God knew she was sitting beside provision.
He called to her in the wilderness:
“What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard…”
And then God gave her a promise about Ishmael’s future.
But what happens next caught my attention this morning.
Scripture does not say that God suddenly created water.
It says:
“And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.”
— Genesis 21:19
The well was there.
Hagar simply could not see it.
The well I cannot see yet
That stopped me.
Because this morning I wanted God to show me how everything was going to work out.
I wanted to see further than today.
I wanted the numbers to make sense.
I wanted to know what I would have to keep and what I would have to release.
I wanted answers.
Instead, Hagar’s story gave me a different prayer:
Lord, open my eyes to the well.
Maybe provision does not always arrive in the form I expect.
Maybe sometimes God changes the circumstances.
Sometimes He provides something completely unexpected.
Sometimes He gives wisdom for a decision I have been afraid to make.
Sometimes He provides through another person.
Sometimes He shows me something that was already there, but fear and exhaustion had made it impossible for me to see.
And sometimes the provision is simply enough grace for today.
I don’t know yet what my well looks like.
That is important for me to say.
Faith does not require me to pretend that I can see something when I cannot.
Hagar could not see the well until God opened her eyes.
So perhaps my responsibility today is not to manufacture certainty about tomorrow.
Perhaps it is simply to trust the God who can see what I cannot.
When you still have to get up
Hagar’s story doesn’t end with her sitting beneath the tree.
God tells her:
“Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand…”
Then He opens her eyes.
She sees the water.
She fills the bottle.
She gives her son a drink.
There is something deeply practical about that.
God’s provision did not mean Hagar had nothing more to do.
She still had to stand up.
She still had to walk to the well.
She still had to fill the container.
She still had to carry the water back.
And perhaps that is where I am today.
I still have to go to work.
I still have decisions to make.
I still have responsibilities.
I still have feelings I need to work through.
I still don’t know exactly what happens next.
But I do not have to see the entire wilderness from where I am standing.
I only need enough light for the next step.
Perhaps you are sitting beside a well too
Maybe your water has run out in a completely different way.
Perhaps it is money.
Perhaps it is strength.
Perhaps it is a relationship.
Perhaps it is hope.
Perhaps you have prayed about something for so long that you no longer know what else to say.
And perhaps, like Hagar, you have reached the frightening place where you cannot imagine an ending other than the one you can currently see.
I cannot promise you what God’s provision will look like.
Hagar’s story does not give us permission to promise one another easy endings.
But it does remind us of something about God:
He sees people in wilderness places.
He hears cries that are barely prayers.
And He can see resources, possibilities and paths that frightened human eyes cannot yet see.
So today I am not asking God to show me the whole journey.
I am asking for something much simpler.
Open my eyes to the well.
Show me what You see that I cannot see yet.
Give me wisdom for what is mine to do today.
Give me courage to get up when I would rather sit beneath the shrub.
And when I cannot see beyond this morning, remind me that my vision has never been the boundary of Your provision.
A prayer
Lord,
Sometimes I reach the end of what I can see and mistake it for the end of what You can do.
When fear narrows my vision, open my eyes.
When disappointment makes me look only at what has been lost, open my eyes.
When I am tired from trying to work everything out, open my eyes.
If there is a well beside me, help me see it.
If there is a step I need to take, give me courage to take it.
If there is something I need to release, give me grace to release it.
And if today You give me nothing more than enough strength for today, teach me to recognise even that as provision.
I cannot see the whole wilderness.
But You can.
So I will get up.
I will take the next step.
And I will trust You with what I cannot yet see.
Open my eyes to the well.
Amen.
