Tag: God who sees

“God sees what you’re doing! God knows! You can’t hide from him!”

All of these words can have an ominous tone behind them. It’s as if God is just waiting in heaven, looking for the next person to mess up so that he can zap them.

But what’s interesting in this passage to me is that God doesn’t reveal himself as that way at all.

Hagar really messed up. She was given to Abraham by Sarai in order to continue the family line, when Sarai couldn’t have children.

But when Hagar became pregnant, she started to “despise” Sarai. She looked down on her. Perhaps she even mocked her inability to get pregnant in 30–40 years while Hagar became pregnant in just one.

And so Sarai started to mistreat her. What does that mean? Perhaps she started using cutting words of her own. Perhaps she used violence. But whatever she did, life became so unbearable for Hagar that she fled.

Certainly Sarai was wrong. But Hagar helped bring all of this upon herself by her own attitude and actions.

And yet, when God confronted her, he didn’t scold her. He didn’t punish her for her attitude or actions. He didn’t say, “You got what you deserved.”

Instead, he showed concern for her. He said, “Where have you come from? Where are you going?”

And when Hagar said, “I’m running from my mistress,” God didn’t demand the whole story from her. He didn’t beat a confession out of her.

Instead, he simply said, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her. You were wrong to do what you did. So go back, apologize, and stop doing what you were doing. If you do, everything will be all right.”

And then he added,

I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count… You shall name [your son] Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. (Genesis 16:9–11)

Basically God said, “Hagar, I know of your troubles; I know you brought them on yourself, but let your son always be a reminder that I am the God who hears you” (Ishmael means “God hears”).

What was Hagar’s response?

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13)

For Hagar, the fact that God sees and God hears was not a thing to be worried about. It was not a thing to be feared.

Rather she learned that this God who sees us and hears us does so in order to show us mercy, if we’ll just yield to him and his voice.

As the old song by Michael Card goes,

To the outcast on her knees, you were the God who really sees.

Maybe you feel like you’ve failed. Maybe your life is a mess because of the bad choices you made. Remember that God sees you. Remember that he hears you. And remember that he longs to show you mercy as he did to Hagar.