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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson: Hi friends, thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here today with my co-host, Meredith Brock.
Meredith Brock: Well, hey, Kaley. We just finished talking to Oghosa Iyamu, and man, I was just really blessed. She taught through and really looked at the story of Hagar. And so if you are feeling maybe uninvited, left out, um alone in the season and you're questioning, God, what are you doing? Today's episode is just for you.
Kaley Olson: It's so good. Before we let you listen to today's episode, I wanted to share a really powerful review we received from a listener named Katie. She says, where do I begin? Proverbs 31 has truly been an ongoing gift in my life. Every podcast speaks directly to my heart. In this tough season I'm going through, I've realized that I'm nurturing seeds all around me, from my children to my marriage to the path God is calling me toward. Proverbs 31 gives me strength to keep moving forward, even when I'm uncertain of the road ahead. I am deeply grateful for Proverbs 31 for keeping my eyes fixed on truth and light through scripture, relatable stories and conversations. I'm reminded that I'm not alone in my journey. Supporting this ministry brings me joy and I hope many others will give as well. Thank you.
Okay, so here's what I love about Katie's story and there's two things. First, she acknowledges God is working in her heart and I love that God is using this ministry to plant seeds. She talked about seeds all along and I think that that is uh part of the way that God is using Proverbs for so many women. And two, Katie is giving back because she wants another woman to experience God at work. and her life too. And friends, the reality is so many of you listening today already support Proverbs 31 Ministries and help us make resources like this podcast and so many others available for free. And I want to thank you for doing that. If you have never financially supported Proverbs 31 Ministries before, then I'd love to invite you to go to proverbs31.org and click donate, or you can just scroll down and click the link below to partner with us. Now, Meredith. Let's jump into today's teaching.
Meredith Brock: Well, we are so excited to welcome a new friend to the show today, Oghosa Iyamu is here with us today. Hello, Oghosa.
Oghosa Iyamu: Hello. I’m so glad to be here.
Kaley Olson: We're so excited that you are here. First things first, where are you joining us from today?
Oghosa Iyamu: Atlanta, Georgia.
Kaley Olson: Oh, that's not too far.
Oghosa Iyamu: Yeah.
Meredith Brock: That's like just right up the road in Charlotte, North Carolina. A few Southern sisters, if you will.
Kaley Olson: Friends, allow me to formally introduce Oghosa to you. She is a phenomenal woman. She is a Bible teacher, a theologian, and a creative communicator with a poetic teaching style and a passion for gospel saturated faith. So kindred spirits over here. She helps people see scripture anew, unscrambling long held assumptions with wisdom, beauty, and accessibility. Whether you're just beginning your journey with Jesus or you've walked with him for decades, she invites you into a... more fuller understanding of the God who sets us free. I love that. And today, Oghosa, you are here to share what you have learned while writing your Bible study called Forever Welcome, to which I know is a great resource we wanna point to later. But for right now, we cannot wait to hear what God wants to share through you. So why don't you take it away?
Oghosa Iyamu: Yeah. Well, thank you. My name is Oghosa Iyamu. And for the first seven years of my childhood, my family lived in government-subsidized housing. And yet, to this day, I still remember it as one of the most tight-knit communities I've ever been a part of. It was as if our shared struggles and misfortunes created a peculiar sense of solidarity. My siblings and I would watch our parents work two, sometimes even three jobs just to keep the lights on. And I often have flashbacks of one uncle in particular, my Uncle Jolly. I remember on different occasions waiting for my uncle Jolly. He would promise that he would come and pick me and my siblings up and take us somewhere fun, but often he never showed up. I'd sit at the screen door watching every car that passed. My heart would sink each time I realized it wasn't him. Eventually I'd slip off my shoes, go back inside and turn up. the cartoons, I wanted so desperately to drown out the noise of my disappointment. When I look back on those years, I often ask myself, what does God's welcome look like for a young girl growing up in less than ideal circumstances? What does God's impartial love mean for those of us who, whether in the past or present, feel as though they are standing in the shadows of being unseen? or forgotten. Who better to show us the transformative healing power of God's impartial love? A love that can reach back into seasons of wounding while also speaking of forward hope into our present heartache.
Who better than Hagar, a young Egyptian servant girl who we first meet in Genesis 16? She can show us this truth so clearly. an outsider to the Abrahamic covenant, a woman who's been cast aside. Her life was marked by rejection and invisibility. And yet it is here in this very vulnerable place that she encounters the God who calls her by name and reveals to her that he sees more clearly than she could ever see herself. I want to speak to the ones today who need the reminder that the God of the universe is a seeing God. He who extends his generous hospitality to the undeserving and the overlooked. And he calls us to do the same. What if our deepest joy isn't in how clearly we see God, but in a stunning truth that God has already seen us and invites us to himself? I believe Hagar's encounter with God speaks directly to past and present moments. Whether you're in ministry, or whether it's pertaining to your marriage or your parenting or in friendships or even in your workplace. So I want to encourage you to lean into these next several minutes because I believe that Hagar story is going to reveal God's invitation to be seen by him. A kind of seeing that transform how we view both ourselves and God, even in the moments where we feel hidden, overlooked or unseen. Yes. Even in those moments we are seen by the God who sees all.
Redemption begins in the undeniable presence of God's impartial love, where the lens of His grace clears our vision to see the God who has always seen us. But you might be wondering as you're listening, what exactly is God's impartial love? It is God's radical and generous hospitality to welcome the undeserving. not because of power or position or past or even one's performance. It speaks to both God's grace and justice and that God will not leave sin unaddressed while welcoming the sinner into fellowship with him. The impartiality of God is central to the character of God and is central for us, his people, to understand and live out. And today, as we zoom in on Hagar's story, we'll see what God's impartial love means for those of us who have ever felt or maybe even feeling right now overlooked, unseen, unwanted or hidden. We first meet Hagar in Genesis 16. As I said earlier, she's an Egyptian maid servant to Sarai, who's later called Sarah, the wife of Abram, later called Abraham. Earlier in Genesis, God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, yet his wife, Sarai, is barren. Here already we see how God often works in ways that seem mysterious to us. While we're looking for him to bless areas of abundance and plenty, God has his eyes set on showing us his power in places of weakness and lack. But still, in these in-between spaces of mystery and waiting, it's uncomfortable, isn't it? For it's all. Even for Abram and Sarai. So we read that in an attempt to make sure this blessing happens, Sarai gave her maid servant Hagar over to Abraham. When Hagar conceived, tensions began to rise even higher in Abram's household. Hagar, the text tells us, began to despise. That word despise means to look down upon Sarah. And in turn, Sarah mistreated Hagar until she eventually fled into the wilderness.
And this is where we find Hagar in Genesis 16 in the wilderness, vulnerable, pregnant, isolated from community and on the run. But it's in this place of despair and hopelessness that the angel of the Lord meets her. Genesis 16, seven through eight reads, the angel of the Lord found Hagar near a desert spring. It was a spring that is beside the road to Shir. Now this location is important. See, beside the road to Shir, which is a wilderness, is a desert region stretching along the northeastern border of Egypt. Hagar is on her way back to her homeland. This particular route leads back toward Egypt. Have you ever been there when the seasons grew so tiring that you just wanted to turn around? You wanted to go back to what was familiar. Even if it wasn't as romanticized as your heartache has painted it to be. Have you ever been there where you wanted to just turn around and go back? Can I be transparent? I have been in a season like that. thought this season would look different. I thought maybe I'd have a particular role or even have my own family by now. And I'm often tempted to look back on past seasons. that were not simply better seasons, but they were past seasons that sometimes helped me escape from my present season. Maybe you've been there. Maybe you are there even right now as you're listening. Maybe you've been looking back. Maybe you want to turn around. Maybe you hear God calling you though to be faithful or maybe Even asking you the same question, he asks Hagar in verse eight. It says this. The angel of the Lord said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? You see, Egypt would mean returning to the old patterns of oppression. It was laborious and for a woman of low status, her returning could be a matter of life and death. Survival for her was not certain. But come close and you'll see God's impartial love pursuing Hagar.
God stops her on her way back home and meets her and her unborn son right there in the wilderness, beside the road to Shur. God meets with her. And did you notice in verse eight, when God calls Hagar, he doesn't say, girl Egyptian, are you over there? He says, Hagar, servant of Sarai. God calls her by name and knows the specifics of her situation. Servant of Sarai. And he says, where have you come from and where are you going? That encourages me to see that God more than finds her. He identifies her before she even said a word. Hagar responds, I'm running away from my mistress there I, she answered. Can I ask those of you who are listening right now, where are you fleeing to? Where are you running to because of the sting of rejection or feelings of unseenness that have captured you? Maybe your escape isn't physical, but emotional. Maybe it's mental fantasies of a better life, a better season, a better fill in the blank. But I believe this is so powerful because God wanted Hagar and even those of us who will be reading these words centuries later to know that God is a seeing God, that he is interested in the details of your life. You see, he knows where Hagar has come from and he knows where she's going. God wants her to know that he knows and that he is concerned with the details of her life because he is a seeing God whose impartial love can reach Even her. Yes, even her who feels overlooked. Yes, even her who has been cast aside. Yes, even her who feels hidden and forgotten. And yes, even her who's listening and in her own wilderness season right now.
He is a God who sees, whose impartial love reaches into the hidden crevices of our lives, bringing healing and revival in places we didn't even know to look. But he does because he's a seeing God. Notice how the angel of the Lord responds. Verse nine. Then the angel of the Lord told her, go back to your mistress and submit to her. And he added, I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count. And then just a few verses later, Hagar proclaims in Genesis 13 is that she gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her Elroy. You are the God who sees me. For she said, I have now seen the one who sees me. You see, Hagar didn't call God a name that meant you are the God I see. She named him El-Roi. You are the God who sees me. Hagar's witness reminds us that God isn't just concerned with us seeing him. And that's important for those of us who live in the West where we can oftentimes prioritize this intellectual knowledge of God. But do you know that God wants you to know that he sees you, that his impartial love is far reaching? He sees your specific situation. He sees your fight against sin. He sees your unspoken desires. God sees you more fully than you could ever see him. And that kind of revelation transforms us as it did Hagar.
Hagar's encounter reminds us that everything true we behold about God begins with the keen awareness of his pursuit of us, but not just us, those around us. who are willing to perceive and take hold of this great love of God being extended even to them. You see, when Hagar calls God El-Roi you are the God who sees me. This is a declaration of not just her present, but her past. If you know anything about Hagar story, she's an Egyptian slave girl, likely brought into Abram's household during the time of Genesis 12:10-20. When Abram and Sarai fled to Egypt because of a famine, most scholars believe Hagar was one of the female servants Abram acquired in Egypt during a situation when he lied about Sarai being his sister and the Egyptian pharaoh rewarded him with servants. Many believe that Hagar was one of them. In other words, Hagar enters the story not by her own choice, but as a result of Abram's attempt to protect himself of trusting God to protect Sarai and fulfill his covenant promise. So when Hagar declares that you are the God who sees me, there's a profound depth behind her words. They come from a woman who knows what it feels like to be unseen, overlooked and cast aside, yet transformed by the encounter of a God who truly saw her, not just in that desert, but before she even came to the very household of Abram. Because he is a God who sees and it's a partial love. makes room for the undeserving. I want to encourage you today that there is a depth to which you can experience God's power and provision and nearness in seasons where you feel overlooked, cast aside and hidden, that it causes you to call out and declare the name of God, that it causes you to say, you are the God who provides, you are the God who heals, you are the God who is my shelter, you are the God who is my rock, you are the God who is my comfort, you are the God who welcomes me. Oh, if Hagar can give God a name, surely today you can recount the names of God that ascribe and give glory to him who has been faithful in your situation and in your circumstance. What would it look like today to pause and recount what God sees when he looks at you?
Consider the meditations of Psalm 139:1-4, and allow God's gaze to remind you of his impartial love. says this, oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit down and you know when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all together. Can I ask you, what would it look like to believe God's impartial love sees you and is pursuing you and not just you, but those around you? See, when we fully grasp God's impartial love, it changes how we treat people in a world marked by bias and division. God's impartial love empowers us to serve others by seeking to understand their unique stories. by overlooking minor offense as the scripture tells us, by rejecting the lies of cancel culture and replacing them with truth, and preserving the unity of the body by extending grace. God's impartial love is not only meant to flow to you, but through you.
See the story I shared with you earlier by my uncle who didn't show up. It left me feeling forgotten, passed by and overlooked. Bitter for years. It was hard. But God's impartial love has allowed it to become a window for me to see something greater. That God's welcome, God's invitation, His impartial love is extended to me even when those who've hurt me are distant. And that's my hope for you. That the very moments in your life where you have felt overlooked, unseen, are hurt by the actions of others' partiality. That even those moments will become windows through which you experience the deepest of God's impartial love and welcome, that is my hope for you.
Meredith Brock: Oh, Oghosa, this is so good and so challenging and also I think so healing at the same time. But I have a confession. Sometimes when I think about Hagar's story, I get so mad because I'm just like, wow, that was so not fair. Like this was crazy. This girl got put in the situation. She had no control. It was thrust upon her, you know? And she ran out into the wilderness just to be like, my God, what do I do? You know? And as you were teaching, I was just reflecting on all the many how I would, know, Hagar wasn't an actual physical desert how many times I have felt like God left me in a desert. Whether it was one, I inflicted on myself, cause I'm gonna confess I have inflicted deserts on myself, wildernesses on myself because of my own choices. But also there have been other times where that wilderness was inflicted on me and I was left angry and despising the wilderness and begging. God, make it go away. Like make this stop, do something, intervene. And as you were teaching, I was just reflecting on where, certainly, surely guys, Hagar was sitting in that wilderness and just going, God, do something. Do something for me. And as you were teaching, was actually reflecting on this morning, I was reading in a devotional. And it was talking about how oftentimes when we pray, are asking God to, our prayers are a petition to change the circumstance. And God change, change this, make the circumstance different. I need something different. When oftentimes God's intention is to change you. And leaves you, he leaves you out of a severe mercy to you in the wilderness to change you. And I was, as you were teaching, cause I just read this in my devotional this morning, I was like, man, you can even see it in this passage where she starts in the wilderness. I'm sure pregnant alone, just feeling so, like you said, uninvited, forgotten, unwelcome. Dead ends in every direction she looks. Dead ends, nowhere to go. And she leaves the wilderness saying, El-Roi. And that was a change within her. She went from, I'm gonna take control here. Even if it's bad control, even if it ends in death, right? I am gonna take control of my circumstances and I am going to run away and try to find another way. And in her experience of the wilderness with God, God changed her heart to say, you're the God who sees me. And so I can, instead of trusting myself, I can trust you. And that is far more significant even. Guys, think about that. Like just pause for a moment and think about the ability. What's harder? Changing someone's circumstance or changing a human heart? Whoa. And the channel with which that happens is oftentimes the painful, lonely wilderness. And so here's my question for you: We got a girl, I'm certain of it. She's listening right now. And she's like, I am in the thick of it. I am saying, God, where are you? I am in this wilderness. I don't see you. I don't understand why I am here. Oghosa, what do we say to her? Help her, help her keep faith in this moment. What do we say?
Oghosa Iyamu: Yeah, I would encourage her to continue to draw near. I would continue to draw near. And here's why, because oftentimes when we are seeking the Lord by faith. We are believing that God even if I can't see you, even if I can't hear you, I'm going to draw near to you by faith. And we know what scripture says is that, you know, this is one of the ways that we are able to honor the Lord is when we say, Hey, even if it's not all good, even if it's not me hearing from you so clearly, I'm going to still seek you by faith. I'm not going to listen to what my emotion says. I'm not going to listen to the fears in my own heart and I'm going to draw near to you and I'm going to believe what your word says that as I draw near to you, you will draw near to me and that you are present. What I love about the story of Hagar is that God meets her right there, right there. He didn't say, let's move from the wilderness. Let's go into this season and then I'm going to meet you and then let's go here. No, he met her right. there and that same guy wants to meet the woman who is listening now in her wilderness, right where she is broken, feeling unforgotten, feeling unseen. God wants to draw near to you and draw near to him by faith, even when you don't feel like it, because there is blessing and drawing near to God as we see in the story of Hagar.
And I want to add to you mentioned something earlier about the wilderness and we see this theme throughout scripture. You know, even with the Israelites, I think it's so fascinating that God did not take them out of Egypt to the promised land. God took them through the wilderness. And I really believe um that God was so strategic because if he would have took them right from Egypt to the promised land, I just wonder if they might have thought. that worship of God is reserved for seasons of comfort. Instead of believing that you can worship God in any season, even when it doesn't look ideal, right? So he took them to the wilderness and he had them build this tabernacle in the wilderness. Well, why not wait till they got to the promised land to build a tabernacle? Unless God wanted to show them that my presence can be with you. Whether you're in Egypt, whether you're in the wilderness, whether you're in a promised land, that my worship and what I am do is not reserved for times or places where you feel comfortable or where it's a season of abundance, that God is worthy in every single season and God can give us what we need to be able to worship Him and draw near to Him by faith.
Kaley Olson: Yeah, that's so good. I want to piggyback off of something that you said, which is so... I think how God works sometimes through the questions that I have planned and I literally wrote down about God drawing us to himself and you're responding to Meredith and saying those exact words. I think something that is as equally as important as recognizing how God is drawing you to himself is also recognizing like, hey, what's the enemy's goal right now with this? So I think you kind of started to unpack that a little bit more, you know, like, getting in your head a little bit, but I would love for you as you've studied this so much, um if God is always drawing us to himself, then the opposite of God is the enemy. So then the enemy's tactic must be drawing us away. And so how do we, just like we look for ways that God is drawing us to himself, how can we also be vigilant about looking for what the enemy is doing? Like what are some things that we might overlook as just circumstance that's actually. like there's something deeper, because I do believe like, he is just as real as God is. And we have to be aware. And so I would love for you to just speak on that.
Oghosa Iyamu: Yeah, as you were talking, you know, the verse that um came to mind is how the enemy seeks to steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus comes that we might have life and have it more abundantly. And so I think of the ways in our life that the enemy tries to steal, kill. and destroy. So whether that's stealing our joy, whether that is killing beliefs that we have about God, these are the attempts and all I go through them, um are destroying hopes, dreams and beliefs we have about God. And so I think how I often have seen it play out in my life and the women that I have ministered to is the mind, often getting us to think that God doesn't love me like he loves them. God isn't concerned about me like he's concerned about them. God is blessing them and he is overlooking me. So I see a lot of it starting out in the mind. What are we believing about God? Do I still believe that God is good in the midst of my current situation? So I think one of the primary ways is first, I think the enemy works to get our beliefs to be not right. thinking about God. And I think we see this even in the garden with Eve and the temptation there to believe differently about God. Because if I can get you to believe that God isn't good or that God isn't who he says he is, then your actions will then follow. And so I believe that we have to be on guard for what are we believing about God? What am I allowing to shape the views and the way that I approach God? Do I believe that I can only approach God when I've been good or when I have everything together or when I've done all the good Christian things that I am to do? So we have to really ask ourselves, what am I believing about God and not just God, but his character and what do I believe to be true? I think another thing that is really big is I think, and I kind of mentioned this earlier with looking at other people, I think comparison is huge. I think especially with social media. and having so much access to other people's lives at our fingertips. I think the temptation in our seasons to believe that God is holding out on us, to believe that other people's lives are better. so therefore we have this ungratefulness. We have this woe is me, not because we really believe that God didn't show up, but because we're looking at somebody else's life. And we're like, well, my life doesn't measure up. Instead of recognizing that God has blessed us in abundance with what we have, but because we're looking at the other person and we're looking at our life and we're thinking, well, God, you didn't really come through when really God did come through, but he didn't come through like he came through in someone else's life. And so um I think that all those things are different ways that the enemy um tries to get us to be off course from where God has us and from seeking and pursuing God. Because here's the thing, I don't wanna pursue a God who I feel like is partial towards me. I don't wanna pursue a God who I feel like has forgotten about me and doesn't care about me, right? So these things lead to us not pursuing God in the way that we should.
Meredith Brock: Absolutely, I mean, scripture is so clear on that, right? Take every thought captive. You know, and I think you're absolutely right is our minds are a battlefield for our faith. Which it's so easy. Sometimes I think we, at least I do, equate faith with some kind of feeling or something attached more to like spirituality or like soul care when in reality so much of our faith takes place in our minds. It is the choice to believe his word over our feelings. It is the choice to act obediently when our circumstances say something else. And so what a good word today. My gosh, we all needed to hear it. I needed to hear it. And we are just so grateful that we got to learn from you today. I wanna let our listeners know that if you have enjoyed her message, I wanna encourage you go grab the study Forever Welcomed, you can get it anywhere books are sold. I think it will bless you deeply if this is something that you are wrestling with. And also we're to link those in our show notes for sure, but you can also go to oghosaiyamu.com to find out anything else about her. If you are like me and you are uncertain about how to spell that lovely name, you can also find that linked in our show notes.
Kaley Olson: You're so funny.
Meredith Brock: It's true. I feel certain no one knows how to spell that unless they have an opportunity for someone to help them.
Kaley Olson: That's true.
Meredith Brock: We're helping a sister out. We've got lots of helpful links down there.
Kaley Olson: I also wanted to highlight a free P31 resource we've linked in our show notes called Beautiful Truths to Remember, 20 Scriptures to Hold On To While You're Still Hurting. This is a resource you can access for free using the link in our show notes. That's going to help you disempower the lie about how you feel about that your life is maybe the full story by remembering there's always something God is doing that's more true, lovely, and good right now. We talk so much about scripture and replacing lies in your head with truth. And so this resource can help you do just that. Go grab it using the link in our show notes. That's all for today, friends. At Proverb 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything.