El Roi

I had already said goodbye, but she turned around one last time to wave at me. The little girl, having slowed her mom’s pace, suddenly lifted off the ground mid-wave, pulled up by the wrist as her mother spun her forward and brought her back in stride. I laughed: this three-year-old bundle of joy is incapable of saying goodbye only once; she says it again and again until we’re no longer in sight of one another. She and her mother are two of the transformed lives at Freedom Home. After her last goodbye, I stopped heading toward the car and stood where I was, watching them walk down the narrow street on their way home from church. They were about to cross a bustling intersection, thick with traffic, and a sudden sense of their fragility hit me. 

They looked so small. Single mother and daughter, two people out of about 700,000 in this city. To most, just two more nameless faces in the crowd. But two people glowing with rebirth and still stepping tenuously through the journey of restoration. The past three years they have spent at Freedom Home have been the most formative three years of their lives in terms of healing and growth. They’re beginning to see the world in color for the first time. I pray that nothing—neither their choices nor forces beyond their control—will break in and attempt to shatter God’s re-building work and slice their mending hearts. As they continued home and the distance between us grew greater, I worried for them. They just looked so…fragile. 

And then a phrase sounded in my mind: I am the God who sees.

It stayed with me through the drive home, and upon entering the house, I scoured my Bible for a reference matching what I had heard. Turns out it was uttered by another single mom. 

Hagar was alone. Once a maid, now she was wandering through the wilderness. Years before, she was forced to lay with her mistress Sarai’s husband—Sarai’s attempt to speed the fulfillment of the promise of a great and innumerable nation to be fathered by her husband. Her short-sighted problem-solving failed, at humanity’s expense, and when Hagar conceived, she hated Sarai. Soon it was mutual. Then the Bible says that Sarai “treated her harshly,” a phrase representing a Hebrew word that elsewhere in Scripture denotes affliction, oppression, and defilement. So Hagar fled. Pregnant and unwanted, she had nowhere else to go. She had been used and discarded. She was alone in the truest sense.

And God found her. 

She was by a spring in the wilderness, east of Egypt, and God found her. He invited her to tell Him her story. He gave her guidance in what to do. He made promises to her. But He didn’t tell her His name; she told Him. 

“She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Genesis 16:13). 

Many translations of this verse phrase her thoughts as a question, with some version of, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” (NASB)

She had heard that to see the face of God meant death. Following this thought line, even the most righteous, accomplished people had no chance of seeing the Lord; much less a chance had the servantgirl who had nothing. Was it even possible for Him to appear to her? 

 He didn’t come with a blaze of light, with a royal procession, or with a scepter to smite her. We don’t know how He came, but no grand entry is mentioned. And He must have spoken tenderly for her to be willing to answer Him. And Hagar, just a pawn in someone else’s dream, was given a promise for her own son.

Why?

Because God sees. Hagar didn’t just state the obvious; she stated the profound as well. 

God doesn’t just observe; He intersects our lives. He doesn’t just view our lives, watching them play out from some remote location; He walks through our lives with us.

The name “The God Who Sees” in Hebrew is El Roi [ell-roh-EE]. El is a word for God denoting might, strength, and power. 

It is significant to note when this seeing God saw Hagar. He didn’t see her at her best; He saw her at her lowest point. A runaway servant, she had nothing but the child inside her. Why would the strong, mighty, and powerful God, who sees all at all times, choose to reveal Himself when she was weakest? 

Because of His love.

He didn’t come to blast her with His glory or to tell her how and in what ways she was wrong. He came to save her life and give her hope for her future. 

Think of it: this all took place before the nation of Israel began. “God’s chosen people” did not yet exist. And yet He cared enough to meet with an Egyptian single mom. 

Of course. That’s always been His plan. 

God chose the Israelites to usher in His plan of salvation, but it was never limited to them only. By one nation, and one man from that nation, He gave new life to the entire world. 

With God’s intentions of world-wide redemption made clear, we can see that He tangibly crossed paths with her to save her. She meant everything to Him. 

And you mean everything to Him, too.

Today, as a result of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s chosen people, “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16), His sons and daughters in all parts of the world, are seen every day. 

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Because I am an English major, I have a slightly obsessive fascination with words. I value them, I pour them daily from my fingers because I want to, not because I have to, and I analyze their usage and origin. And sometimes, the usage of particular words rubs me the wrong way. Take the word random, for instance. 

In the last several years, this word has been heavily (over-) used by my generation. And let me tell you, we’re not often speaking mathematically, referring to randomly generated numbers on our homework sheets. I hear it incessantly used as an adjective: 

          “We were flipping to random pages in the yearbook and seeing if we knew anybody.”

          “Some random person asked me if I knew where the grocery store was.”

          “No, I’m free to hang out; I was just doing random stuff until you called.”
 

The definition of the adjective random is “lacking a definite plan, purpose or pattern.” In the first example, this definition fits. The yearbook pages weren’t predetermined; they were haphazardly chosen, without any real preference. Something random is something we come across on accident, something we didn’t seek out intentionally, and something obviously needing an additional adjective to describe it. 

The other two examples, however, don’t quite fit the denotation. How can people be random? Even if they do not know their purpose, that does not mean they were created without one. How can the things we choose to do be random? Random-ness excludes choice and intentionality. To my culture, random can equated with insignificance or the condition of not knowing beforehand. 

I say that to say this: with God, there is no “random” anything. Even though this word may permeate our sub-culture, we will do well to remember that to God, there is no person lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern. No one and nothing is random to Him.

Because God is the One Who Sees. 

We don’t have to worry about the others who see us, or about the ones who don’t see us but should. We don’t need to lament that our good deeds aren’t noticed. We have to resist the tendency to equate value with worldly recognition. Where the media can’t reach, God has already and always been. No people group, no sector of society is insignificant to God. All people, all places, all entities are seen equally by our Lord; do we think He gives more attention to some people and less to others?

God didn’t just find some random Egyptian girl in a desert. He met Hagar, a name He’s had on His lips since the beginning of creation, with a personalized message of life. 

God didn’t just randomly find you, some random person in some random place, and give you a smattering of knowledge about Him that you’re left to piece together and make sense of on your own.

He gives you His words. He gives you His heart. 

          “…Thus says the Lord, your Creator…and He who formed you, …Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched. Nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:1-3a)[.] 

His love isn’t an extension of His sight; His sight is an extension of His love.

God sees His daughters in Moldova. God crossed the street with them that day and went home with them. Remembering that God sees them is remembering that He sees us when we are at our weakest, when we are fragile, when desperation threatens to overwhelm us.

When indecision overwhelms you, whisper that your God is the God who sees. When a sense of insignificance clouds your outlook, speak out that God is the God who sees. When you are burdened for those whom the world has discarded, declare that God is the God who sees. When injustice assaults, shout that God is the God who sees.

Seen,

Renée