Letting God Write The Final Chapter of Our Lives | Ps David Fernandes

Devotional

Day 1: Water in the Wilderness

Hagar fled into the desert, her sandals kicking up dust as Sarah’s harsh words echoed behind her. The Egyptian slave collapsed by a desert spring, alone and pregnant. Then the Angel of the Lord found her—not by accident, but by divine appointment. He called her by name, spoke to her shame, and promised her son a future. God meets us in our most desolate places. [07:19]

This encounter reveals God’s relentless pursuit of the marginalized. He didn’t wait for Hagar to clean up her mess or find her way back. He came to her—a foreigner, a slave, a runaway—and rewrote her story.

You might feel stranded in your own wilderness today—overwhelmed, unseen, or ashamed. Hear God’s question to Hagar as His word to you: Where have you come from? Where are you going? What desert spring is He leading you to, even now?

“The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert... And he said, ‘Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?’”
(Genesis 16:7-8, NIV)

Prayer: Ask God to open your eyes to His presence in your most barren place.
Challenge: Write down one situation where you feel “stuck,” then circle a source of hope (a friend, scripture, or practical step) you’ve overlooked.

Day 2: The God Who Sees

Hagar named God El Roi—"the God who sees me"—after surviving the wilderness. Her declaration wasn’t theoretical. She’d tasted dust, felt her unborn child kick, and heard divine promises in the desert heat. God saw her exploitation, her desperate flight, and the son she’d soon cradle. [14:09]

This name changes everything. The God of Abraham wasn’t just a tribal deity—He saw an Egyptian slave’s tears. He numbers every hair, collects every tear, and tracks every wandering soul.

When have you felt invisible—at work, in relationships, or in pain? El Roi sees your hidden struggles. Will you let His gaze shift your perspective from abandonment to assurance?

“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 the One who sees me.’”
(Genesis 16:13, NIV)

Prayer: Thank God for three specific moments He “saw” you this week.
Challenge: Text or call someone who’s feeling overlooked: “God sees you—and so do I.”

Day 3: Obedience in the Desert

The Angel’s command stunned Hagar: “Return to your mistress.” Submission to Sarah—the source of her pain—felt like death. Yet she obeyed, walking back into the storm because God promised life on the other side. Her obedience birthed Ishmael, ancestor of nations. [15:36]

God often calls us to counterintuitive faithfulness. Like Hagar, we’re asked to trust His promise more than our pain. Like Naaman dipping in the Jordan, surrender precedes healing.

What difficult obedience is God requiring of you? A strained relationship? An unresolved conflict? A daily act of trust? Where is He asking you to walk back into the desert, holding His hand?

“The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Go back to your mistress and submit to her.’... So she gave this name to the Lord: ‘You are the God who sees me.’”
(Genesis 16:9,13, NIV)

Prayer: Confess one area where you’ve resisted God’s direction. Ask for courage to obey.
Challenge: Perform one act of intentional kindness today for someone who’s hurt you.

Day 4: Brokenness Before Blessing

Years later, Hagar wandered the desert again—this time with teenage Ishmael. When their water ran out, she placed him under a bush, whispering, “Don’t let me watch him die.” Then God opened her eyes: a well sat steps away. Her brokenness became the threshold of provision. [31:12]

God’s greatest work often begins when our strength ends. The widow’s oil multiplied when jars ran dry. Lazarus lived when hope had rotted. Our emptiness becomes His canvas.

What well have you missed because you’re fixated on the drought? What if your crisis is the prelude to His creative power? How might God use your exhaustion to unveil His sufficiency?

“Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.”
(Genesis 21:19, NIV)

Prayer: Pray Psalm 34:18 aloud: “Lord, You’re close to the brokenhearted.”
Challenge: List three “empty jars” in your life—ask God to fill one specifically today.

Day 5: Holding the Promise

Hagar’s story ends with a covenant: “I will make him into a great nation.” God didn’t erase her pain but transformed it into purpose. Every Arab today carries her DNA—a testament to God keeping promises beyond human sight. [34:55]

Our finite stories thread into God’s eternal tapestry. Joseph’s betrayal saved nations. Ruth’s grief birthed kings. Your trials might be groundwork for generations.

What promise are you struggling to hold? How might God be weaving your “wilderness years” into something lasting? Will you let your story proclaim, “He finishes what He starts”?

“God heard the boy crying... Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
(Genesis 21:17-18, NIV)

Prayer: Thank God for one unfulfilled promise—trust His timing aloud.
Challenge: Share Hagar’s story with someone feeling forgotten, emphasizing El Roi.

Sermon Summary

Grace lets God write the final chapter when someone cannot. Genesis 16 sets the scene. Abraham and Sarah reach for a shortcut, and one mistake complicates a family. Hagar, an Egyptian servant, is exploited and pushed into a role she did not choose. The wilderness becomes the picture. It is sand, sand, and more sand, the place where direction gets lost and a sandstorm can end a life. Into that place the angel of the Lord finds Hagar at a spring. God looks when a sufferer has no strength to look. That is grace.

The text says the grace of God reaches an outsider. Hagar does not know the God of Abraham, yet God speaks to her. That truth stretches the church’s imagination. Gospel witness is not noise on a street corner, it is a life that people can taste and see. Abraham’s tent should have been a sanctuary, but Hagar cannot see grace there. So God meets her himself.

The angel’s words are hard and kind at once. Return and submit. The desert will kill you. Obedience that stings can save a life. With the command comes a promise. Name the boy Ishmael, because God hears your affliction. God sees, God hears, God names a future where a mother can only name pain. Consequences still run. A wild donkey of a man, a people not easily tamed, conflict that echoes across generations. One hurried choice can ripple for centuries.

Genesis 21 deepens the ache. Sent away with bread and a skin of water, Hagar lays her boy under a bush and sits a bowshot off. A mother’s tears cannot watch a son die. Heaven answers the cry. God hears the boy, lifts the mother, and opens her eyes. The well was there all along. Sometimes the answer sits right in front, but pain blinds the eyes. Hagar names God, El Roi, the God who sees me. First broken, then blessed, then eyes see. Timing matters. He makes all things beautiful in his time.

The witness that failed in Abraham’s tent becomes the charge to the church. Adjust attitude, drop prejudice, build bridges, not barriers. People expect a different standard from those who name Jesus. The cross broke the wall to make one new humanity. Someone’s lowest point can become the meeting place with the living God, because yesterday and today Jesus is the same.

Key Takeaways

1. Grace chases outsiders in the wilderness. Grace moves first when a person has no energy to seek. The angel meets Hagar at a spring, not in a sanctuary, and calls her by name. That reach redefines mission, because God’s mercy is not confined to insiders. A disciple carries hope into hard places because grace did so first. [05:06]
2. God hears affliction and names futures. Ishmael means God hears, and El Roi means God sees. Suffering is registered in heaven, and pain is not the end of the story. Naming reframes a wound into a vocation, a life that will be stewarded by God’s promise. The future is declared in the middle of tears. [13:44]
3. Obedience that stings can save. Return and submit sounds wrong to aching ears, yet the desert would have destroyed Hagar. Sometimes God’s path runs back through the place that hurt, because safety and provision are positioned there for a season. Survival, formation, and destiny often ride on hard obedience. [15:36]
4. Repent of prejudice, build real bridges. Hagar could not see grace in Abraham’s house, which indicts a cold witness. Attitude either opens a door or hardens a heart, and small words can lower the temperature of a room. Wisdom learns people’s stories and finds shared ground, so the gospel can be heard as good news. [38:41]
5. Timing and process open hidden wells. God opened Hagar’s eyes to water already present, exposing how fear narrows sight. Answers often sit within reach, but anguish shrinks imagination. Scripture-fed patience trains the heart to wait until vision clears and provision is seen. Beauty arrives on God’s clock, not by force. [31:12]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[00:19] - Let God write the final chapter
[01:32] - Genesis 16, Hagar’s story begins
[02:33] - One mistake complicates a family
[03:51] - The wilderness image and peril
[05:06] - Grace reaches an outsider
[07:19] - God finds the hurting at the spring
[08:28] - Exploitation then and now
[11:50] - Witness by example, not show
[12:58] - Angel’s questions and strange command
[15:36] - Obedience back into pain
[16:33] - Attitude, racism, relational wisdom
[21:35] - Ishmael, promise and consequences
[28:04] - A mother’s cry, God hears
[31:12] - Eyes opened to the water

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading
Genesis 16:7-13 (ESV)
7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. 12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” 13 So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV)
He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Observation Questions

In Genesis 16:7-13, what specific actions and promises does God take toward Hagar, an Egyptian outsider?
How does the sermon describe the wilderness as a place of danger and divine encounter? (See [03:51])
What two names are given in this passage (Ishmael and El Roi), and what do they reveal about God’s character?
According to the sermon, why did Hagar struggle to see the well of water in Genesis 21 until God opened her eyes? (See [31:12])

Interpretation Questions

Why do you think God commanded Hagar to return and submit to Sarah, even though it meant returning to a painful situation? How does this reflect both kindness and wisdom?
The sermon states, “Grace moves first when a person has no energy to seek” (See [05:06]). How does Hagar’s story illustrate this truth about God’s initiative?
The name Ishmael means “God hears,” and El Roi means “the God who sees.” How do these names reframe Hagar’s suffering into a larger story of purpose?
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God makes things beautiful “in his time.” How does Hagar’s experience challenge our impatience with God’s timing?

Application Questions

When have you felt like an “outsider” in a situation? How does Hagar’s story encourage you to trust God’s pursuit of you even in wilderness seasons?
The sermon warns that “one bad life choice can ripple for generations” (See [22:37]). What practical steps can you take to seek God’s guidance in decisions affecting your family or community?
Hagar obeyed God’s call to return to a painful place. Is there a situation in your life where God might be asking you to walk back into difficulty for a season of growth or provision?
The sermon challenges believers to “build bridges, not barriers” (See [38:41]). How could adjusting your attitude or language this week create space for someone to experience God’s grace through you?
Pain can blind us to solutions God has already placed nearby (like Hagar’s well). What “well” (resource, relationship, or truth) might God be asking you to recognize in your current struggle?
How can you intentionally name God’s faithfulness in a past or present hardship, as Hagar did with “El Roi”? What would it look like to share that testimony with someone this week?

Sermon Clips

42s

“``One bad life choice has consequences sometimes from generation to generation. So we gotta be careful when we have to make choices. We gotta be careful that we make choices in line with the will, purpose, and plan of god, that we come into a deep understanding of god's timing and how he works in in human lives because today we have the entirety of the bible. And then we don't try to push or manipulate god to do things according to our time. He makes all things beautiful in his time.”

47s

“The question we have for each one of us is, what is god asking you to do in the context of your struggle? In the context of your tension, you want to be freed from something that you think is holding you back, but god said go back to it. That's not easy. Some people say, I don't like my boss, and the boss says, I don't like you either. It takes two to fight. It takes two to tango. If you don't like your boss, you need to adjust your attitude. When you adjust your attitude, everything else becomes easy to handle.”

57s

“And I'm gonna talk to you about a a woman who had been exploited, a woman who was a single parent. And every time I read her story, I'm encouraged because the god we worship who is revealed to us in the person of Jesus can take any mess and turn it into a message. It's called grace. It's called grace. Grace is god's riches at Christ's mercy. On the cross, Jesus said, it is finished. It is finished. And in some for some of us, our final chapter hasn't been written yet.”

69s

“When you are going through a desperate situation, sometimes the answer is in front of you. You cannot see it. Right in front. Henga was desperate for water, but she was so focused on her pain that she couldn't see the water in front of her because we are human, because we are frail, because sometimes we are self reliant. We think we can resolve our problems our way. We can't. I've tried and failed. Wow. A desperate woman who is a single mother. God always had a special place in his heart for single mothers.”

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Letting God Write The Final Chapter of Our Lives | Ps David Fernandes | 17th May 2026