genesis: El Roi — the God who sees.

Yesterday, I was driving, and randomly, the stories of Hagar and Leah came to mind. Hagar was used to bear a child to Abraham to “help” God fulfill His promise that Abraham and Sarah would bear a son. & Hagar was the unwanted wife of Jacob. ⁣

In Genesis 16, Hagar ran away to escape how badly she was being treated by her master. While in the wilderness, the Bible says that an angel of the Lord found her, tells her to return, and prophesies about the son she’s bearing. At the end of the interaction, it says that Hagar “called the name of the Lord who spoke to her El Roi, You are a God of seeing. Truly here, I have seen Him who looks after me.”⁣

In Leah’s story, her husband is tricked into a marriage with her. When her husband finds out that he did not receive the wife he worked so diligently for, he works 7 years more to marry her sister, the one he actually loved. In Leah’s story, the Bible mentions that Jacob hated Leah. Genesis 29:31 says, “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb…”⁣

We can dig much deeper into both of these stories, but for now, what I was reminded of was that God is a God who sees. He sees the ones who feel as if they’re in the background with no significant story and no hope for being saved.⁣⁣

In both of these stories, neither one of these women are main characters. Their stories are not the ones we automatically think of when we think of Abraham or Jacob (Israel). But I am reminded that even before Israel was a nation and donned as God’s chosen people, God was still in the business of seeing the One. ⁣⁣

Honestly, I need this reminder a lot of the time. This has been a long year, and I don’t feel like myself all of the time. Despite my fears, God is reminding me that He is El Roi. He is the God who sees me when I’m unraveling. In all of creation, in all of the galaxies, on all of Earth, He still sees ME, individually. His eye is on me, and He’s attentive.⁣⁣

Just as He’d find a servant girl in the desert, or keep His eye on bride who wasn’t wanted, He sees each of us. We are not too small, and we are never overlooked.