God Sees You In Your Pain
Have you ever wondered if God saw you?
Yes, you know the theological truths of His sovereignty and His workmanship. You know Him as creator, as loving, as powerful. But in the moments when you are misunderstood, or lost in life wondering if you are on the right path, or simply deep in pain and feeling lonely, does He see you?
When theological truths for the mind seem insufficient, the simultaneous question and request stand: “God, do you see me and can you show me that you do?”
Being seen
Why is being seen so important? When we are young we look into the stands to see if our parents came to the game. When we achieve a milestone in life we often spend time with family and friends. When we have a hard day, we long for someone to notice and offer encouragement. When we put extra time and effort into a project, relationship, or service we want people to see.
Why?
Because being seen communicates that we are not as alone as we feel. It reminds us that we are not forgotten. That someone is mindful of us.
IS God away?
If we are honest, many seasons of life feel like God does not see us. He seems far, distant, uninterested. It can stack up to make us question his involvement in our lives, are we simply jellyfish floating through life, while God is up in the heavens just watching?
Is He even watching?
Maybe He stepped away.
The servant girl
There is an ancient story in the book of Genesis about a husband and a wife and their servant girl. The husband, Abraham, and his wife Sarah. They are the main characters. For context, God promised Abraham a son but after years of waiting they wanted to take matters into their own hands.
What do they do? Get their servant, Hagar, and impregnate her so that Abraham can have his long-awaited offspring. Does that sound twisted and messed up? It is. The Bible does not condone this behavior. The Bible speaks honestly about the sin of human beings and it lays beside it the nature and character of God.
In this story, we always focus on Abraham and Sarah, and how this was not the way they should have tried to intervene, rather they should patiently wait on God. That is a true sentiment. But, we can quickly overlook a key part of this story.
What about Hagar? The servant girl who was used and then essentially thrown aside? Genesis 16:5 says: “…Then Sarai dealt harshly with her [Hagar], and she fled from her.” Hagar felt alone. Unseen. Lost.
We feel that, don’t we? From the most insignificant tinges of feeling unseen at work, to the major fractures of feeling unseen by our spouse, to all the ways in between. It is common in the human experience to feel alone and in pain. Confused and distraught. Wondering, if no one else sees me right now, will at least God?
The Wilderness
As the story progresses, Hagar runs away. The text then says something profound:
“The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur.” (v7) Hagar did not go looking for God, God took the initiative and found her. And where did He find her?
The wilderness.
There are profound learnings in the wilderness. We meet God out there. Or rather, He meets us. I don’t know how you feel unseen in your life at the moment. It could be a hard marriage. You feel like you are trying to make it work and hold everything together but your partner is not. You feel unseen. It could be a family member with an illness. You are serving them, caring for them, and taking that extra load of responsibility upon yourself. You wouldn’t change it for the world, you want to serve. But you feel alone, unseen. It could be your ministry. You wonder if you are doing any good as a pastor. Are the endless sermons, meetings, counseling sessions, and prayers doing anything?
Do you feel unseen?
Take heart from verse 7, we have a God who finds us in the wilderness.
Ending of the story
Hagar goes on to say:
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.”
The Hebrew word Hagar uses to describe God is El-Roi. “The Hebrew phrase used here, el ro'i, can be translated as “God of seeing,” referring to God’s ability to see everything; “God of my seeing,” a testimonial by Hagar that she has witnessed a divine being; or “God who sees me,” a more personal version of the first translation. Hagar’s remaining words suggest that the phrase deliberately expresses all of these.”
John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ge 16:13.
God, an all-perfect, all-holy, all-supreme, grand, and majestic being overseeing all of heaven and earth is looking down at an overlooked servant girl. What is the author of Genesis trying to teach us about this God of the Bible?
That He sees you and that He will show you that He does.
Meditation prompt
I invite you to meditate on this: God could have communicated his presence and seeing of Hagar at any point in the story, yet he does it when she is in the wilderness alone. What does that mean for you in your journey with God?
Thankful for a God who sees,
Josh.