El Roi, the God Who sees
Gen 16 (NIV) 7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
11 The angel of the LORD also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the LORD has heard of your misery.
12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers. ”
13 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.”
You will remember Sarai and Abram. Sarai tired of waiting for God to fulfill His promise to Abram that he would be the Father of many nations. So Sarai, rather than steadfastly waiting on God, urged Abram to take her handmaiden Hagar, an Egyptian, who got pregnant with Ishmael. But Hagar made fun of Sarai, and as a result Sarai made her life untenable. Hagar ran from Sarai to the desert. While Hagar was awaiting death, an angel found and delivered her and Hagar recognized one of God’s characteristics as “the Lord who sees—El Roi.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when once we practice to deceive. I am convinced the primary reason God speaks against divorce and remarriage is our inability to handle multiple spouses and families. Yet in the Old Testament it was a common practice for a man to have multiple sexual partners. Why? Two possible reasons are (1) God told man to be fruitful and multiply, Gen 1:28) and, (2) it was a form of protection for a woman to be in the household of a man since women were largely untrained and uneducated.
Don’t you find comfort in knowing that God sees us? It is God’s ability to see us that is a part of His being omniscient, or all-knowing. Do you suppose that because there are times in our lives when we feel invisible that we cannot imagine a God who loves us and sees us? When we arrive at the point in our lives when we can see with our minds and our hearts that God loves us and knows our name, then we will be able to know, believe and understand that God not only loves us, He sees us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Seeking Holiness 