The Names of God: El Roi

El Roi: The God Who Sees

Genesis 16:13 KJV

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?

There was a young boy whose mother had passed away unexpectedly. He was the smallest of several children and his father was grief-stricken. The boy never uttered a word or shed a tear when they told him his Momma had died, he was quiet through the planning of the funeral and during the service, silent on the car ride to the cemetery. 

But when the men started to lower the casket into the ground, the little boy started screaming, "Don't put my Momma in that hole! Don't put my Momma in the ground! Don't put my Momma in that hole!" He was sobbing and screaming while his Daddy held him and they watched as her casket was finally lowered. 

On the car ride home, the little boy asked his Daddy when his Momma was coming home, and tired and worn, sorrowful and stressed, his Daddy snapped back at him, "Son she's not coming home ever again and you just need to hush about it." 

He'd not have spoken to the boy that way if he'd not been heartbroken, he never meant to hurt him. The boy hushed and didn't speak the rest of the ride home. Once there the children went inside and began getting ready for bed. The Daddy sat alone in the dark in the bedroom he'd once shared with his wife. He hadn't said a word since he'd snapped at his boy. 

His door opened and the little boy came in and said "Daddy, if my Momma ain't never coming home again, can I sleep with you?" His Daddy told him he could and they climbed into bed. It was only a minute later when the Daddy felt his son's hands brush across his face, lightly, gingerly. He said "Son what are you doing?" And the little boy answered, "Daddy you might not know this but I'm afraid of the dark and if I can just feel your eyes, I'll know you're looking my way and I'll be alright."

I'm glad tonight that I worship and serve a God whose eyes are looking my way! I've got a heavenly Father who sees me! He sees me in the darkest black of night and the brightest light of day. He sees me in my sorrows and my rejoicings. He sees me and He knows my fears and my dreams. I am so thankful that I've got a Father that I can scrooch up to when I'm afraid, when I feel like my world has fallen to pieces around me. I'm just so thankful tonight to know the God Who Sees.

I was worried that I'd not be able to do this post justice, that I wouldn't be able to magnify His name. But then I heard one of my favorite preachers, Brother Mark Stroud, give this illustration about the little boy in a sermon and I knew exactly why I'd tarried in writing this post. Sometimes we just need to know and to be thankful for who He is and what He has done for us. He's not bound by flesh, He won't snap at us, and we need not tell Him what our fears are because He already knows. He knows us inside and out, knows the very number of hairs on our heads. He knows when we're scared of the dark, when we need held, when we need peace and when we need comfort. 

Hagar was the only person to ever call God by this name. I've read many commentaries about this as I've studied in the last week and each one had a different thought about why she gave God this name. But I wondered if it wasn't because it was in that moment when the angel of the Lord appeared to her and told her that she was with child and his name would be called Ishmael, meaning "God hears", that she realized that the God of Abraham was her God too? She was an Egyptian, possibly a runaway slave, whose own name means "forsake."  Maybe she knew that then as the angel stood in front of her after she had fled Sarai's jealousy, that God had not forsaken her. That He did in fact see her. He saw her in that moment and He saw her again in the wilderness after she and Ishmael had been cast out following Isaac's birth. She had left her son in the shade of a brush tree and had gone a bowshot off so that she couldn't hear his cries as he died. She sat crying and hopeless when the angel of the Lord appeared unto her again saying this time that God had heard Ishmael's cries and they would be delivered. 

Genesis 16-19 KJV

16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.

17 And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.

18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.

19And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

He is the God Who Sees and He sees me.