Elab: A PPC Sunday Devotion

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Elab

I am blessed brother

For Elab smiles upon me

El Roi guides through deserts

Breeds hunters beneathe the brush

I have found the pierian springs

And have drank

I seek every day to drink deeper

Blessed Lord of my brothers before

Take me to the river

Teach me to drink more

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Elab is a shortened version of the word "elaboro" a verb meaning " he/she/it prepared."

We give many titles unto God. They are each reflections of our relationships with him. However, to give a name unto God is deeper. It is a reflection of your personal relationship. The action of naming breeds intamcy between things. A certain attachment is formed. I give the name "Elab" unto God for he is the one who prepares all things for me. His plan is my path. Every hill, crack, crossroad and beautiful site is a machination of his making. Each prepared with purpose.

"El Roi" was a name given unto God by Hagar, Abraham's slave wife and father of his first son Ishmael, meaning "the God who sees me." Hagar was cast out due to Sarah's, the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac, distate of her. She was sent off with some food and a silk skin of water and wandered the Deserts of Beersheba carrying an infant Ishmael. Her silk skin of water ran dry. She placed Ishmael under a bush and watched him as he cried aloud. She too began to cry as she lamented the thought of watching her son die. This is when God answered her cries. In a time when she felt alone and no one else saw her, God saw her.

Hagar's story and the irony of her situation teaches us many lessons. Here is an excerpt from faithward.com to help explain:

Hagar’s story is Israel’s story. She is a slave, just as the children of Israel had been slaves in Egypt. Yet, in this story, Hagar was an Egyptian woman enslaved by an Israelite taskmaster. Consider what God might be saying to us through the irony of flipping these power dynamics.  Hagar becomes a threat to her mistress once she delivers a son, just as Israel became a threat to Pharaoh when the people grew in number. Hagar suffered abuse at the hands of Sarah and Abraham, just as Israel faced abuse at the hands of its Egyptian taskmasters. And just as the Israelites ran away from their bondage in Egypt, so Hagar ran away from the cruelty of her mistress. Hagar’s story is an exodus story. ~faithward.org

//In case you would like to read more: https://www.faithward.org/women-of-the-bible-study-series/hagar-the-woman-who-named-god/

God promised to make a nation of Hagar's son Ishmael. This became the Nation of Islam. He raised Ishmael to be an excellent hunter in the wilderness of Paran. Despite being cast aside and attempts to deny her child an inheritence, Hagar was chosen nonetheless. She was seen. May we continue everyday to recognize that God sees us.

Hagar was inpired by her life experiences as she drank her final drops of her water source. In ancient Macedonia, a water source called the Pierian Springs was thought to bring forth knowledge and inspiration for all who drank from it. It felt as though I had drunk from these reserves as the name "Elab" dawned upon me. It had sprung upon me weeks after truly reading the passages for the first time. For a time, I was mistaken in believing that this was the name Hagar had gave unto God.

Years later as I write this Sunday Devotion, I read Genisis 21:8-21 one again and realized this was not a name that Hagar gave unto God, but rather one I gave unto him myself.