HAGAR, UNLOVED & UNWANTED

By NIYI BORIRE, Paul Onukaogu and Tofunmi Ejiwale

'She defined herself by her past because she saw no future...'

This woman knew what it was to feel unloved, to feel unwanted, to suffer disappointment, and to want revenge. However, she found the courage to go forward in life. Her name is Hagar, the woman who cried out to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changemakers Book Club
• Release date: Dec 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645043365

NIYI BORIRE

Niyi Borire is a multifaceted and dynamic individual. An award-winning neurologist, neuroscience researcher, lecturer, author, speaker, and change agent. He is on a mission to help people navigate change without losing their purpose, identity, and individuality.Niyi Borire is the founder and host of Brain, Mind & Change (BMC), an online series that leverages his scientific background and pastoral assignment to teach people how to achieve mastery of their brain, rewire their minds, and change their world. He is also the convener of Legacy Conference, an annual conclave of visionary leaders who feel the weight of the calling of God upon their lives to impact their world for God and to spread the knowledge of the glory of Jesus around the world.An Amazon best-selling author, he has written three books, including his autobiography titled Navigating Change: Timeless Secrets for Growth in an Ever-Changing World. He and his wife, Yemi, pastor Beautiful Gate Sydney in Australia. They are blessed with two wonderful boys.

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Introduction

To be unloved and unwanted is not something that many people can handle, especially in our world today. This explains why depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide are on the rise like never before. People all over the world are facing rejection in one form or the other and at one level or another. It's a demon we all face. Sometimes, we defeat it; other times, it floors us. Everyone has a deep-seated desire to be loved and wanted, but that is not always the case.

In this book, we take you, the reader, on a memorable and meaningful journey into Hagar's life in her present time. We also journey through her story whilst drawing lessons and touching on a vast array of subjects from surrogacy to abandonment to hearing from God and other topics that greatly affected women then and strongly affect many women today.

This is in no way a book for women alone, even though the main character is a woman. Instead, Hagar is only an example through which we examine significant life challenges and draw inspiration and gain practical wisdom that would help us get better results in our own lives today.

This woman knew what it was to feel unloved, want revenge, suffer disappointment, and feel unwanted, yet also found the courage to go forward in life. She is the woman who cried out to God. For a long time, she defined herself by her past because she saw no future to long for until God interrupted her and gave her something to look forward to.

Are you a wandering soul that has felt unloved or unwanted? Your 'well' is waiting for you in the pages of this book. Just take a leap of faith and go along on this journey with Hagar.

HAGAR – BACKGROUND

Hagar's first mention in the Bible was in the first five verses of Genesis Chapter 16.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, The LORD has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her. And Abram agreed with Sarai's proposal. So Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.) So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt. Then Sarai said to Abram, This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she's pregnant she treats me with contempt. The LORD will show who's wrong—you or me! Abram replied, Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit." Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away'. Genesis 16:1-5 (NLT)

From her introduction in the scriptures, we know a few things upfront about her; she was a slave and an Egyptian, called 'Hagar'. Hagar's name has no particular meaning. Hagar was probably in her early teens when she was taken to be Sarah's slave from Egypt. After Abraham and Sarah had stayed ten years in Canaan, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to take her as his wife, and her only reason for doing this was to have children through Hagar. Isn't that interesting? We would see the implications and consequences of that as we go on. Abraham, without any form of hesitance, went in to Hagar, and she got pregnant. Mission accomplished!

After Hagar got pregnant, The Bible says that she began to despise her mistress, Sarah, seeing that she now had what her mistress badly wanted – a child. Sarah, who initiated the plan to start with, could not withstand one of the byproducts of her choice. She resorted to maltreating Hagar and eventually asked that she be sent away. While fleeing from the maltreatment of her mistress, Hagar met an angel.

Both the Qur'an and the Torah are unified that Hagar was an Egyptian princess who was given as a slave to Sarah and Abraham. Some accounts say Hagar was the daughter of Pharaoh and was given to Abraham and Sarah because of the good fortune they brought to Egypt while they stayed there.

We have no idea of her background, but we know that ancient Egyptians sold themselves and their children into bonded labour – not willingly but because they could not pay off their debts.

In those days, most slaves were owned by men. So, Hagar was not a general slave. Hagar was explicitly assigned to Sarah by Abraham to care for her needs. Even though Abraham later took Hagar as a wife, they never stopped seeing her as a slave. That was her identity before them, and nothing was going to change that, not even bearing the first child of her master. Hagar must have felt very insignificant because the Bible constantly recognised her as a slave. She didn't have an identity; all she was known as was Sarah's slave. She must have had an identity crisis.

The most likely narrative is that Hagar was from a poor background. That was probably how she ended up in slavery because it is doubtful that Pharaoh will let his daughter become a slave to a man who is a non-Egyptian. The Egyptian civilization was the most sophisticated civilization at the time. The Egyptians would have thought that they were of a higher social class than any other nation.

Hagar was born into a low-income family. She probably struggled growing up like every other person, figuring out her place in society and why she was disadvantaged. It is also very likely that Hagar became a slave very early as most kids do. Most