Fully Seen and Fully Known

There's no mountain too high or valley too low

Good Morning!! (Or afternoon, or evening, or whatever hour of the day you find yourself in right now.) Is it just me, or has life seemed pretty heavy recently? It may just be that we’re in the hard part of winter now—waiting for everything to warm up again without the excitement of the holidays to distract us from the cold—but between the loss of loved ones, sicknesses, injuries, stress, or just seeing other people go through hard times, I’ve definitely felt the weight of the past few months. I know this is not exactly a new sensation for a lot of people who’ve found themselves in the midst of a much longer than expected season of this “heaviness.” But whether, like me, you allow stress to hand you the weight of the world occasionally, or you have been holding more than you’d like for a significant period of time, it’s necessary to sit back and linger in the fact that you are not hidden. Relief and resolution may seem to be long overdue for you and your situation, but God sees us where we are, not just where we want to be.

Many people have heard the story of Abraham and Isaac where God asks for the ultimate sacrifice. And then, because of Abraham's obedience, He provides a ram for the offering at the last second, sparing Isaac. It was there on the mountain that Abraham coined the name Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides. While this story tends to get a lot of time in the spotlight, a similar, yet seemingly overlooked story takes us even further back in the Bible with just as much significance. For the last few days, at least, it has held my attention and given me a strong sense of peace that I’d love to share.

Before Abram and Sarai became “Abraham” and “Sarah,” they were still unable to conceive children. Sarai made the choice to give her slave, Hagar, as a wife to Abram in a “last resort” attempt to give him a child. When Hagar became pregnant, Sarai began to mistreat her (maybe out of jealousy or contempt), so Hagar ran away. While out in the wilderness, the angel of the Lord found her and asked,

‘Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?’ (Genesis 16:8).

After explaining that she had fled from her mistress, the angel of the Lord responded,

‘Go back to your mistress and submit to her.’ The angel added, ‘I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count’ (Genesis 16:9-10).

There in the desert, Hagar gave God the name El Roi, meaning the God who sees me. 

Doesn’t it seem significant that the first person to encounter the angel of the Lord in the Bible was not Noah, or Abraham, or Moses, but a runaway slave woman? God is so intentional in giving specific evidence of His love and shows that He sees all of us, not just those who appear to be “worthy” or “well-known” or “successful” by worldly definitions. He saw Hagar, not despite her troubles, but within her troubles, and gave her hope, guidance, and a blessing. 

There are so many parts of this story that I love, especially the verses that show God’s awareness and concern for us on an individual level. When Hagar was alone in the middle of the desert, probably struggling with feelings of guilt or hopelessness, God appeared to her. It’s so powerful in the way that Scripture uses specific words and phraseology; it doesn’t say that God just happened to be passing through the desert area and decided to stop by. It says He found her. It didn’t matter that she’d run away and was in the middle of nowhere, God saw her and knew exactly where to find her.

David echoed this feeling when he wrote: 

Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

    If I make my bed in the depths, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning

    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

    and your right hand shall hold me (Psalm 139:7-10).

In our highest highs and our lowest lows, God is there leading us and holding us. There is no place we can go and no distance we can cover that takes us from His sight. It’s hard to even comprehend the way God sees us—it’s something we can’t fully understand with our human limitations. Yes, God sees our physical forms wherever we are, just as He saw Hagar in the desert, and while this is comforting in and of itself, there’s something even deeper behind what it means to be truly “seen” by God. Again, David communicates this in Psalm 139:

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

    the days that were formed for me,

    when as yet there was none of them (15-16).

To be fully seen, is to be fully known. And we are fully known by no one as intimately as our Creator, who intricately wove us together piece by piece. When God found Hagar, He did something so simple, yet so powerful. He called her by name. He let her know that He saw her, not just her physical body in the desert, but her life as a whole. He saw her in that desert before He’d ever even formed her in the womb.  

It gives me so much peace to know that God sees you and me this same way. He sees us wherever we are, with whatever we’re battling, because He’s never not seen us. He sees us in the deserts we face, when we’re at our weakest and most desperate, and He calls us by name. What a blessing it is to be loved and cared for by a God who doubles as the perfect Father, friend, brother, healer, way maker, miracle worker, and promise keeper. He’s the God who provides, and He’s the God who sees.