We Who Are Seen

Every Wednesday we’ll post something to do with doctrine and recovery. Hope it helps.

—

We Who Are Seen 

“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?” – Genesis 16:13

Hagar isn’t the most sympathetic of Bible characters. Handmaid to Abraham’s barren wife Sarah, she had become pregnant by Abraham at Sarah’s insistence. (Genesis 16:1-2) You’ll remember that God had promised them a son, but Sarah, like so many of us, liked God’s promise, but not His timing. In her impatience she basically said, “Let’s help God along. He said we’d have a son but I’m still not pregnant. So instead of waiting for God to do what He said He’d do, you lie with Hagar, she’ll have the child, and we’ll make him our own.”

Abraham complied, and Hagar became full of both child and attitude, evidently showing contempt to her mistress since she, rather than Sarah, was carrying Abraham’s baby. (Genesis 16:4) By now none of them are looking too good, as Sarah begins mistreating Hagar, and Hagar flees in fear. (Genesis 16:6) And in her helplessness, brought on by a difficult situation she’d helped to create, God meets her.

Pause. He met her.

OK, I fully understand God meeting a martyr who’s suffering because of persecution or injustice; that makes sense because, after all, such a person suffers wrongfully. But here He’s intervening in the life of someone who is at least partly to blame for her circumstance. He not only meets her, but He meets her with a plan, and a promise, and in grateful response she rightly calls Him “The One Who Sees.”

That alone blows me away. He is the One Who Sees, seeing us both in the pain we’re allowed to suffer, and the pain we’ve created by our own sin, or stupidity, or both. Maybe Hagar felt compelled as a servant to go along with the surrogate pregnancy plan, but her open contempt for Sarah was inexcusable. Even then, He saw, pitied, intervened. Just as He has seen me, pitied me and intervened countless times when I’ve cried out to Him in the middle of stress that I brought onto myself. Like when I found out 29 years ago that several partners I’d been with were now infected with HIV and I, strangely enough, was spared. Or 33 years ago when I got hopelessly drunk one New Year’s Eve and had no ride home, so in my insanity I got behind the wheel of my own car and prayed the classic prayer of the backslider, “Get me out of this mess!” Or way too many other times when my sins were lessor or greater, but still amounted to hard times I had brought on myself, only to be encountered with mercy by The One Who Sees.

This cannot, of course, suggest there’ll be no consequences for sinful, ridiculous decisions and actions. Often we pay a huge price, and a necessary one, for our wrongdoing. But I’ve found so often we also find merciful help when we least deserve it, gently administered from the loving Father who pities those who fear Him, remembering our frame and knowing that we’re still, after all, just dust. (Psalms 103:13-14)

Far from encouraging me to just relax and let things slide ‘cause He’ll forgive and restore, this actually spurs me on to be that much more diligent to do what’s right, resist what’s wrong, love freely, forgive fully, and run the race like a zealot who’s striving to please the One who sent him. When The One Who Sees shows such kindness, it inspires holiness, not sloppiness, so Paul nailed it when he told the Romans “The goodness of God leads to repentance.” (Romans 2:4)

We are seen today, and what’s seen by Him who sees isn’t always so good. But what amazing comfort we can draw from the fact that He Who Sees is anything but a disinterested onlooker. He is, in fact, a tender Shepherd (Psalms 23:1) who knows our steps (Psalms 37:23) commits Himself to us unreservedly (Hebrews 13:5) and will finish the good work He began in us. (Philippians 1:6)

He sees. And loves, forgives, provides and never gives up on His own. Under that infinite and grace filled gaze, we of all people can rightfully say, “Have a Good Day.”

So have one.