In the past several years my life has gone in a direction I did not plan. Ministry work that god had allowed me to be part of, He was now asking me to give up. I started a full-time secular job which limited time to nurture friendships and dreams of full-time ministry seemed to have disappeared. I felt hurt and confused and life was feeling very unfair. My heart was broken at the changes I had to make and at times it felt like God had forgotten me. It was in this darkness that I was crying out to Him one day when the Holy Spirit reminded me of a name for God I had studied in the past, El Roi, which means the God who sees me. What a comfort at a time when I felt so lonely. Even though I felt that God was far away, the truth was He saw me.
Genesis 16 is the only place in the Bible where we find the name El Roi. I will summarize the story, but I encourage you to read it in your Bible as well. The three main characters are Abram, Sarai and Hagar. God has promised Abram and Sarai that He will bring a nation from them, their descendants will be as numerous as the stars. Yet, they still have no children. Hagar is an Egyptian slave, Sarai’s maidservant. Sarai decides to help God’s plan along and tells Abram he should sleep with her maidservant. This sounds add to us today, but it was a common practice for infertile wives to use their maidservants as surrogates. Any children the maidservant had were then considered children of the wife. Abram obliges and Hagar becomes pregnant. Things went downhill from there. Although we don’t know exactly what happened between Sarai and Hagar we know that Hagar began to hate Sarai and Sarai treated Hagar cruelly to the point that Hagar ran away.
Hagar ran to the desert and it was there that an angel of the Lord came to her. He told her He saw her misery, listed to her and then told her what to do next. It was then that she called Him El Roi, the God who sees me. He didn’t just see her in the desert, He saw her heart. Look at verse 8. What two questions does He ask her? “Where have you come from and where are you going?” The angel knew the answers, but He took the time to hear her heart. To hear the cries of what she had been through. Often times that is all we need as well. Someone to hear the cry of our heart. Even though she was then told she had to go back, she knew that God saw her pain.
When the Holy Spirit reminded me that God is El Roi, the God who sees me, I was able to go on. He did not change my situation but gave me the strength to keep walking through the darkness knowing He was right there beside me.
How would you answer the two questions that the angel of the Lord asked Hagar?
Where have you come from and where are you going?
If you are in a difficult season, rest assured that God sees you and still has a plan for you. If you are not in a difficult season right now, mark this devotion so you will have it on hand when that season inevitably comes.
Spend your time in prayer today sharing the cries of your heart with God who knows you and sees you. Take comfort in His heart for you.