We sat in a the living room, scattered on couches and kitchen chairs and higher up counter stools, worshipping. As the last notes of the song hung on, our pastor invited us to worship God by proclaiming His name.
In the stillness that followed, His Names rang out from different lips.
Healer
Mighty to Save
Yahweh
Redeemer
The Lamb Who Was Slain
God With Us
Wonderful Counselor
One name jumped out at me, and I think it did the same for many others, because a murmur of worship and agreement ran through the room.
The God Who Sees Me
It was as if a breath of air that had been held inside me for too long rushed out all at once.
The God Who Sees Me
The God Who Sees Me
The God Who Sees Me
He sees me. He sees my heart. He sees my struggles and my pain. He sees my joy and my passion. He sees my desires and my longings. He sees my light and my darkness. He sees my mind and the battles fought within it.
He sees me.
HE SEES ME, AND STILL, HE LOVES ME.
And isn’t that the very deepest longing and desire of my heart? Isn’t that the thing that drives much of my stress and anxiety? Isn’t that the thing that informs so many of my choices and actions? The desire to be fully and completely known and understood. To simultaneously be completely known and completely accepted.
Isn’t that what I am constantly working toward in my marriage and in my friendships, and yet is always illusively out of grasp?
Because as humans, for all our trying, we will never be able to fully and perfectly comprehend every aspect of another person. We can never be perfectly known and comprehended because we don’t even know and understand our own selves well enough to help another understand us completely.
But God.
But God is not another human. He is not equal to us in understanding of ourselves. He is beyond that. He is our creator.
HE UNDERSTANDS US IN A WAY THAT WE CANNOT EVEN UNDERSTAND OURSELVES.
He fashioned us with purpose and uniqueness and intention and beauty, and sometimes it seems as though our whole lives are taken up with uncovering that how that purpose is to be lived out in the practicality of the day-to-day.
I looked up this name of God today.
El Roi - The God Who Sees Me
And I found that this name for God is only used once in the Bible. It was used by Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, when she ran away.
God saw her in her affliction from Sarai. He saw her in her hardness of heart toward Sarai. He saw her in her desperation. He saw her in her humanity.
And He didn’t give her an easy out. He told her to go back, to go back to her harsh mistress and submit. He told her to go back, knowing that much later she would be sent away. He told her to go back her place of shame and mistreatment. He told her to go back to slavery and servitude.
BUT HE ALSO TOLD HER THAT HE HAD HEARD HER, AND THAT HE HAD A PLAN FOR HER AND HER SON.
And her response was this.
"So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, 'You are a God of seeing,' for she said, 'Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.’”
Genesis 13:16
She did not even know His name, but she knew that He had seen her. That He had deeply seen and understood her. Something in her brief interaction with God convinced her to obey. Convinced her that He was good. Convinced her that she was deeply seen and understood. Convinced her that she was protected.
And she obeyed.
She went back to the place of her hurt. She went back to the place of her disgrace. She went back to the place that would require her ultimate submission and sacrifice.
She went back because she knew that He saw her. He knew her. He heard her. He loved her. He was looking after her.
What places would I go unafraid if I realized how deeply He knows me?
How fully He sees me?
How faithfully He hears me?
How wholly He looks after me?
How completely He loves me?
HE IS THE GOD WHO SEES ME.
I want to let that truth sit deeply in me. I want it to push into the deep places of my heart and mind. I want it reshape my heart and my actions. I want it to inform my every thought and desire.
I want to live from the understanding that He is The God Who Sees Me.
