#137 THE GOD WHO SEES YOU 9-15-26
Sometimes it’s hard. Very hard. Hard to believe that someone sees what you are going through. You can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone. You can smile in public while carrying a private burden. You can sit quietly in a room while a thousand thoughts are screaming inside your heart. But there is something Hagar discovered in the wilderness that every child of God needs to remember: God sees you. After the Angel of the LORD met her in the wilderness, Hagar called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees” (Genesis 16:13). He saw Hagar. He sees you. “For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry” (Psalm 34:15).
HE SEES YOUR PAIN
God saw Hagar when nobody seemed to care about what she was experiencing. She had been mistreated, she had fled into the wilderness, and she was sitting beside a spring of water in a lonely place. But the wilderness was not Godless. She was not invisible. Heaven knew exactly where she was. God asked her, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8). He knew the answer, but He wanted her to know that He knew.
That is one of the tenderest truths in all of God’s word. God does not merely see crowds. He sees individuals. He sees the person standing alone. He sees the widow. He sees the grieving husband. He sees the exhausted mother. He sees the man who has learned to hide his pain behind a smile. He sees the person sitting in a church building wondering whether anybody understands what he is carrying. “The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men” (Psalm 33:13-15). “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).
Think about what science has taught us about seeing. The Hubble Space Telescope has allowed human beings to observe objects unimaginably distant from earth. Astronomers can study light that has traveled across enormous stretches of space. We marvel that human beings can detect something so distant.
But God does not need a telescope.
He does not need an instrument to find you.
He does not need a satellite to locate you.
He does not need a microscope to examine your heart.
“O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off” (Psalm 139:1-2). David continued, “There is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether” (Psalm 139:4). You cannot get so far away that God loses sight of you. “If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there” (Psalm 139:8).
And God does not merely see your circumstances. He sees your tears.
David said, “You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?” (Psalm 56:8). What a picture. The tears you think nobody noticed were noticed by God. The prayer you could barely pray was heard by God. The sigh that never became a sentence was understood by God.
“I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry” (Exodus 3:7). God saw their suffering. God heard their cry. God knew their sorrows.
So when you hurt, remember Hagar.
You are not unseen.
There is a God who sees.
There is a God who hears.
There is a God who cares.
“Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
BDD
