“And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?”
The Face
Hagar speaks these words in genuine crisis, alone, pregnant, fleeing mistreatment in the wilderness, and yet her response to encountering God there is not primarily relief at rescue, but wonder at being seen, thou God seest me, spoken as genuinely significant in its own right, apart from whatever rescue followed.
Notice she gives God an actual name here, El Roi, the God who sees, one of the few instances in scripture of a person naming God based on their own specific encounter. Being seen, genuinely and specifically, by God, was significant enough to warrant this naming, not merely incidental to whatever else happened in this story.
This is worth holding for whatever wilderness you may currently be in, however isolated or unseen by others you may currently feel. Hagar’s own crisis did not disqualify her from being genuinely seen. If anything, it was precisely in that crisis that this seeing became most vivid, most worth naming.
Whatever place feels most hidden or unseen in your own life today, receive Hagar’s discovery as genuinely true for you as well. Thou God seest me, not despite the wilderness, but often most clearly within it, the same God she named still seeing you there, specifically, today.
Turn Your Face
- Name whatever wilderness currently makes you feel most unseen or isolated.
- Receive today that God genuinely sees you there, specifically, the way he saw Hagar.
- Consider naming this truth for yourself today, the way Hagar named God for what she found.
Prayer
Lord, thou God seest me, even here, even in this wilderness. Let me receive this the way Hagar did, as genuinely significant, not merely incidental to whatever else you do. Amen.
Carry this today
Being seen by God is significant in its own right, not only as a means to rescue.