God Sees and Hears YOU!
Have you ever felt invisible?
Have you felt like no one knows or cares about the pain you are enduring?
There is a story of a woman in the Old Testament who felt invisible, unknown and shoved aside. To say her home life was difficult would be a sizeable understatement.
Invisible, Unknown, Shoved Aside
She is not usually the woman we take notice of when we read her story in Genesis 16. Her name is Hagar, and she is Sarah’s servant who is now pregnant with Abraham’s child. Sarah is barren and, out of frustration, has given her slave to her husband to bear children for her.
You can imagine the family scene; it is just as difficult as you picture. There is hostility and anger being flung back and forth between the two women until Sarah treats her so harshly that Hagar runs away.
Alone in a desert, pregnant with her master’s child, and abandoned by everyone in the household, Hagar sits down next to a spring of water and utterly gives up.
That’s when God meets her.
Just like Hagar, each of us, during different seasons of life, are susceptible to aloneness, verbal and emotional harm, harsh treatment, and hurtful words. We feel:
- vulnerable
- sidelined
- not valued for our true potential
- insignificant
And we run away, just to protect ourselves.
God instructs Hagar to return to Sarah and submit to her authority. Then he adds a promise:
I will give you more descendants than you can count… You will give birth to a son and name him Ishmael, which means God hears. God has seen and heard you!
(Genesis 16:11 my paraphrase)
What a turn-around of events!
An Encounter With God
Hagar had an encounter with God and one of his names, El Roi, the God Who-Sees-And-Hears me, comes from this meeting in the desert by a well.
For some reason, we don’t pay much attention to Hagar.
Abraham, Sarah, and their future son Isaac are the heroes we look to as examples of our faith.
We usually don’t consider Hagar as a woman we learn anything from. But she is the one God chose to reveal one of his names to.
God is Deeply Personal
The God that met Hagar in the desert is a deeply personal and intimate God. He was the God who saw and heard Hagar, and he is sees and hears you too.
This is the God who knows and numbers the hairs on your head. (Matthew 10:30)
This is the God who sees your heartache, wants you to let him walk with you through it, and will remind you he has a good plan for your life. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
He is not deaf to your cries or blind to your circumstances. (Psalm 18:6)
This is the God who keeps every promise. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
God Sees You and Hears You!
- God sees you right there in your weariness.
- God hears your cries of frustration and pain.
- God sees you when you feel abandoned by even those you love.
- God sees the desert you are aimlessly wandering through.
- God sees the difficulties you are facing and the loneliness you feel.
Ask El Roi, the God who sees you, to open your eyes so you can see him working. Ask him to increase your faith, especially when his promises seem so far away.
Praise God that he sees it all and knows the whole story from beginning to end.
Ask him to give you a vision for the future and then the ability to trust him every step of the way.
Dig the Well Bible Study
The story of Hagar and the God Who-Sees-And-Hears is just one of the lessons in the Dig the Well Bible Study.
LEARN MORE HERE . . .
