Saturday, March 01, 2008

You, God, see me

The God Who Sees Me

Hagar, a favorite Bible character, was the first single mother in the Bible, the first woman “put away” or abandoned by her man. When she realized that God loved and cared for her, she gave Him a new name: “The God who sees me.”
Hagar represents the unseen of earth. The poor, the divorced, the outcast, the discarded, the foreign, the poor, the hungry, the rejected. Even now she is unseen or “wrongly seen” by many Christians. Yet, her life in many ways mirrors another slave’s: Joseph.
Both Joseph and Hagar were owned by foreigners, faced possible death because of the jealousy of others, were seen as mere objects by female owners because of sex and their youth. Both learned obedience through suffering, were honored and demoted, were enslaved because God needed them to preserve His people, suffered in order to help their master’s nation, and were saved by divine intervention.
“You, God, see me” encompasses all the names of God:
Jehovah-jireh – God provides – He sees your needs.
Jehovah-rapha – God heals – He sees your sickness because he was afflicted as we were and was wounded for our healing.
The Lord our shepherd – He is not a hireling who pays no attention to the sheep.
The Lord our light – He sees our path although we know it not.
The Lord our Comforter – He sees the pain in the heart of the rejected and unseen ones.
“You, God, see me.”
The name’s meaning can be understood by the most innocent child and by the most guilt-wracked adult. It is a name that the wounded and the powerful, Christians and non-Christians can be enlightened by. It is a name that shows that God is immediate and intimate, yet omniscient, awesome, and eternally loving.

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