“Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are a God who sees me’; for she said, ‘Have I even seen Him here and lived after He saw me?’”
-Genesis 16:14 NASB
In Genesis 16, Hagar, a slave woman, is met by God after fleeing mistreatment. It’s really quite a profound moment. Hagar was a foreigner, an outsider, a servant, caught up in the sorrow of others’ choices and fears, yet God saw her, spoke to her, and comforted her. She was so overcome that she called God, El Roi, “the One who sees me.”
The Hebrew root implies far more than casual sight; it means to look upon with understanding, care, and involvement. In calling God El Roi, Hagar didn’t just feel that God saw her physically, but that He saw all that she was, all that she struggled with, and all that she needed. He saw beyond her social position, beyond her sin, beyond her doubts and fears…He saw her.
That is the depth of God’s love for us. He sees us. Not the masks we wear. Not the curated versions of ourselves we post on social media. Not the best thing we’ve done nor the worst. He sees the son or daughter made in His very image.
Wherever we are.
God intimately knows, values, and notices us, even in the depths of our personal “wilderness”.
There’s more to it, though. See, Hagar was fleeing mistreatment, and God told her to go back to Sarai. What good was it to be seen by God if she was just going to have to go back to possibly the same poor situation? Where’s the miraculous rescue? I always wrestled a little bit with that part because it seemed like Hagar was deprioritized. Then I read a commentary that brought it all a touch deeper.
“Hagar knew that if God could be with her in the wilderness, He would be with her in having to submit to Sarai also. It was as if Hagar said to God, ‘You have looked upon me, and now I can look upon You.’ That face-to-face relationship with God transforms.” (Enduringword.com)
We all want God to just pull us out of the wilderness, to walk us around the valley of the shadow of death, not through it. But sometimes, through has purpose. When we go through, knowing that we are seen by God, we can see Him with us even in the middle of our struggle. We can know that we are not forgotten by a faithful God who is our hope and our ever-present help in times of trouble. Oh, what strength can be derived from that? What grace to know that the Almighty, Most High, is walking with us?