Believing Is Seeing

You, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

Psalm 10:14 (NIV)

El-roi, the God Who Sees (see Genesis 16:13). God first revealed this name to a most unlikely prospect: Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian slave. One of the defining characteristics of God’s work in the world is the preposterous way he insists on showing the worth of things we consider lowly.

At Sarah’s command, Hagar bore Abraham a son named Ishmael. During her pregnancy, she had been driven into the desert by Sarah’s harshness and jealousy. But when she was alone and forsaken, God sought her out. God chose the wilderness and the slave woman and the outcast son as the setting in which he revealed an astonishing aspect of his character.

Hagar called him El-roi, the God Who Sees. She didn’t mean a god who glances or notices in passing. She meant the God who saw her when she thought no one knew she even existed, when everyone else had turned their backs on her, when everyone else had averted their eyes. Surely that enabled her to return to Sarah as El-roi commanded.

Fourteen years passed, during which Sarah remained childless, and Hagar’s son Ishmael lived as the favored and adored son.

Let’s fast-forward to the incident recorded in Genesis 21, the weaning of Isaac. Two events play out at the same time: a joyful party is being held to celebrate Isaac. Concurrently, Hagar and her son, Ishmael, are sent away and wander in the wilderness.

The celebration of Isaac gets scarce mention before our attention is drawn to the lowly and despised. While we celebrate the winners, El-roi comes to Hagar again and tends to her. The God Who Sees opens her eyes to reveal his provision: “God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw a well full of water” (Genesis 21:19), and “God was with [Ishmael] as he grew up” (Genesis 21:20). El-roi has provision and promise for the discarded and forsaken. He not only sees, he seeks out, pursues, and protects.

My protector and defender, I look to you because you are watching over me.

A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is waiting our response to His presence.

A. W. Tozer(1897–1963), American preacher and author