The God Who Sees

One of the most popular childhood games is called: “Hide and Seek”.  The person who is seeking is supposed to hide their eyes and count to 100 and then shout: “ready or not here I come”.  Finding the best hiding place is the secret to winning the game,

Children are not the only ones who play hide and seek.  Sometimes we attempt to hide from God.  We may think that here is no way God can see me where I am.  The prophet Jonah was trying to run from God.  Refusing to do what God told him to do, Jonah went in the opposite direction, got on a ship and sailed away from obeying God.  God saw him on that ship.  God saw him in the storm.  And God saw him in the belly of the great fish.  Jonah learned that he could run from God, but he could not hide.

Hagar was expelled from the household of Abraham by a jealous Sarah.  She was pregnant, abandoned, and destitute as she sat down by a spring of water in the wilderness.  She was away from the tents of Abraham but not away from the eyes of the Lord.  God saw her and sent the Angel of the Lord to encourage her.  The angel found her and reassured her about the future of her child and instructed her to return and submit to her mistress.  Despised and dejected, Hagar then issued her praise to God in Genesis 16:13: “Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, "Have I also here seen Him who sees me?"  Hagar learned that no matter how alone and how helpless she was, her God was The God Who Sees.  The Hebrew word to describe this name is: El Roi.

Have you found yourself in a place where you think no one knows, and no one cares?  Has your world fallen apart and you feel alone in the wilderness?  God is the divine seeker.  He sees you and will come to find you no matter where you have hidden.  Make sure you respond like Hagar: “I have seen Him who sees me”.