More Lessons from Hagar

It occurs to me that I should just save all of this until after I've taught this lesson, but sometimes the wonder of God's truth is just too great to not share right away.
So, just to recap, in Genesis 16 we meet Hagar, the mistreated maidservant of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. She's pregnant with Abe's baby because Sarah thought that'd be a good idea. Only, once Hagar was pregnant, Sarah was more than a little uncomfortable with the situation and Hagar was more than a little taunting toward her mistress. Eventually, the whole situation becomes too much to handle and Hagar flees. She's a fugitive in the desert, pregnant, alone, and a long way from her home in Egypt. Then, an amazing thing happens. God comes to her.
Hagar tells Him her plight, then He tells her what to do. Two commands. Go back ... and submit. Ouch! I'm thinking this is probably not what she wanted to hear in that moment. But, this is where the lesson gets good. There was grace in those commands.
First of all, to whom was He sending Hagar back? To Abraham's people, God's chosen, the blessed ones. Hagar was a foreigner, from a people who did not worship the True and Living God. By sending her back to Abraham and Sarah, God was placing her in the protection of His people. Secondly, He told her to submit. Submit to an unfair situation? Submit to carrying the child of a man who used her and a woman who plans to take it from her? Really? Submit? But, there's more. The Lord tells her a little bit about the baby she's carrying. As the child of Abraham, he's to be included in the promise. Submit, let Abraham claim the child, for he will have descendents too numerous to count. "El Roi" could see the things Hagar could not.
Ahh! Do you ever find things in scripture you just wish were not there? Grace in a command like "go back and submit"! Think of it. How often do I sense the Lord's command in my life, but ignore it because it just seems too far-fetched to be accurate.? Surely that's not what He meant to say. Surely I didn't hear that correctly. Surely "El Roi" the God who sees everything, even invisible women hiding in deserts, wouldn't ask me to go back to that difficult situation and submit myself to an unfair authority. Would He?
Perhaps I would do well to remember that the everything He sees includes the things I cannot see.