In his book The God I Don’t Understand, Christopher Wright observes that an unlikely person is one of the first to give God a name. It’s Hagar!

            Hagar’s story provides a disturbingly honest look at human history. It’s been years since God told Abram and Sarai they would have a son, and Sarai has only grown older and more impatient. In order to “help” God, she resorts to a custom of the day. She gives her slave, Hagar, to her husband, and Hagar becomes pregnant.

            Predictably, dissension arises. Sarai mistreats Hagar, who runs away. Alone in the desert, she meets the…