The God Who Sees

 

Watching the ocean from my balcony, a dichotomy: easy to see the greatness of God in the vast ocean and endless sky…and easy to miss the greatness of God in our seemingly tiny lives.  Sometimes in life, we can feel invisible, unimportant, unseen.  People who know us best can seem to love us least or hurt us most.  People who should protect us sometimes fail, die, or even give up.  God wrote in our souls a need to feel seen, to be known, to be understood and loved.

Hagar was Sarah’s servant during a time when servants did not matter.  Sarah gave Hagar to her husband Abram to try to help God along in fulfilling his promise of many sons to Abram.  After Hagar conceived, Sarah got angry and mistreated Hagar so that she would leave (who could have predicted that one?)In Hagar’s sorrow, the Lord came to her with the name Lahai Roi, “One who sees me.”  How amazing that God sees us even when we feel like no one else can…that we are never alone, never invisible, and always worth seeing by the Creator of the universe.  God had heard of her misery and sent an angel to name her son Ishmael, which means, “God hears.”

So even in her worst time…when her 85-year-old master had purposefully impregnated her and then washed his hands of the consequences, when her only source of earthly survival abused and betrayed her, the God who sees and hears visited her.  And He is the same God who sees us and hears us.  When we feel completely abandoned and unworthy of protection, Lahai Roi visits us. 

“Good and upright is the Lord;

Therefore He instructs sinners in His ways.

He guides the humble in what is right

And teaches them His way.

All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful

For those who keep the demands of His covenant.

For the sake of your name, O Lord,

Forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord?

He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.

He will spend his days in prosperity,

And his descendants will inherit the land.

The Lord confides in those who fear Him;

He makes His covenant known to them.

My eyes are ever on the Lord,

For only He will release my feet from the snare.

Turn to me and be gracious to me,

For I am lonely and afflicted.

The troubles of my heart have multiplied;

Free me from my anguish.” (Psalm 25:8-17)