Shirley
The God who sees you
The dictionary describers seen as : perceive with the eyes; discern visually or to deduce after reflection or from information; understand.
To be loved is to be seen. When we go out looking for love what we are looking for is to be seen. Seeking love at least in my book means standing before another and intentionally allowing yourself to be seen. It is to put a spotlight on yourself and give another full access to see you in all your wonderful and wrenched glory. It is to stand in the light, exposed, open with your beauty, flaws and all, and hoping to be chosen while still dripping in the everyday of self-doubt. It is an unravelling, a revealing, an unwrapping that often takes a lifetime and requires a daily commitment from both parties involved. Love is not the butterfly feelings we feel when we meet the ‘one’ or ‘soulmate’, or when we cannot get someone out of our head, that is an attraction. To be truly loved by another is to be seen by them in your good, bad, and even ugly and to have them still choose to stay by your side. Now that is love, the kind you can take to the bank!
There can be no real love without exposure, there has to be light. Interestingly enough God is described as light (John 8:12; John 9:5, Psalm 27:1, Psalm 43:3; Psalm 36:9, Daniel 2:22 etc). This concept of God being light is used in various capacities to convey different revelations about our Father in Heaven, but to me the most poetic connotation is that it speaks of the God who truly sees us. The God who loves us like no one else will ever love us. The God who foreknew us before He placed us in our mother’s womb, and only placed us intentionally when He had a very specific purpose and plan for us (Romans 8:29, Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13-18; Ephesians 2:10). The God whose light formed us in our mother’s womb, who knows our past, our now, and further holds the keys to all the wonders and secrets of who we can become beyond what we know in our now and what we can even fathom about ourselves (Romans 8:29, Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13-18; Ephesians 2:10). Yes, He is the God who anointed David, a lowly shepherd boy King when no one believed him worthy not even his siblings or father (1 Samuel 16); the God who found a hiding moses who stammered and called him a deliverer of the Israelites (Exodus 3). The God who called the fearful and cowardly Gideon a mighty warrior (Judges 6:11-40), and called Abraham the father of many nations even when he and his wife were old and barren (Genesis 17:5). Yes, He is the God who can see as in our now, but can also see what we can become even when it has not taken form or shown any evidence of existence in the now that we are living in.
No one can see us the way God sees us. He can see us in three dimensions, our past, now and what He has predestined or foreknows us to be, and everything else in between. What this basically means is that no one will ever love us like God loves us. I mean, the Bible says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
Further, apart from stories where God found people living their normal lives and called them into a purpose they could never have imagined for themselves, there are also stories in the bible where God saw people in their valley seasons, people who thought they had been, forgotten, rejected, abandoned, disappointed, wounded, unheard etc, but God!
I particularly love the kindness and gentleness with which the good book handles or recognises the plight of widows and orphans who in biblical times held one of the lowest and most vulnerable positions in society. This was because they lacked a male protector, income, and legal standing, making them easy prey for exploitation that exacerbates poverty. God through his word literally reiterates the message of the responsibility that a community has towards those who are lowest, in this case widows and orphans ( James 1:27; Isaiah 1:17; Deuteronomy 10:18; Exodus 22:22-24; Psalm 82:3; 1 Timothy 5:3-16 Deuteronomy 14:28-29; Deuteronomy 10:18; Deuteronomy 14:29; Deuteronomy 24:17-21; Psalm 68:5; Isaiah 1:17 etc). The verses are many and diverse and are found throughout the bible in both the new and Old Testament. This highlights the fact that God sees those who are considered the lowest in society, and how they are treated matters very much to God. There are three powerful stories in the bible about widows that particular speaks about the God who sees. In 1 Kings 17:8-16, where we see the story of prophet Elijah who is instructed by God to go to Zarephath to be cared for by a widow and the widow in 2 Kings 4:1-7 where the widow in the story in desperation seeks help from the prophet Elisha because her late husband’s creditor is threatening to take her two sons as slaves. In both stories the widows experienced abundance as God multiplied what she had because of their obedience. In their obedience to share what they had with the man of God, their life changed forever. While the two stories above are wonderful, the one that moves me the most and shows us that God sees us even when we are forgotten is the story of the widow in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4 where Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. There he witnessed many rich people throw large amounts, but the person he truly saw was the most insignificant of them all, HE saw the poor widow who came and only put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. After Jesus went on to reiterate that the poor widow had put more into the treasury than all the others because the rich had given out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on. God saw her. In her lowly place, where she was most likely invisible or ignored by others because she was clearly poor and barely had enough for herself, God saw her.
Another favourite is the story in the bible of the ballsy woman with the issue of blood which often brings tears to my eyes, the good kind. To me her story is one of the most powerful stories of not just faith, but about the God who sees us. When I imagine the type of life she must have lived with a bleeding condition for over 12 years, my heart breaks for her. However, when I read about her faith, I cannot get past her outrageous audacity. She had spent all that she had on one physician after another, and had never gotten better. Instead her condition continued to get worse, but this woman was so ballsy in her faith and would not be deterred in her belief that one day she would be healed. It is perplexing to grasp the life of consistent disappointment that she had lived for 12 years on one hand and on the other hand the kind of faith that she carried within her. It makes no absolute sense. This lady who in my books is one of the greatest women of faith is found in the book of Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, and Luke 8:43-48. In these passages, the woman in question heard that Jesus was in town, and while He was on His way to heal the daughter of a synagogue leader who had just died, she came up behind Him and touched the edge of His cloak believing that if she touched His cloak she would finally be healed. The most wonderful thing about what happens next after she touched His cloth was the fact that Jesus did not continue on His way, He instead turned back and saw her, and the words He spoke to her were like a healing balm even to me who is reading her story today. This woman had not only suffered financially due to her condition, but had also been forgotten and overlooked. In those days, a woman was considered unclean during her monthly flow, so a woman who bled for twelve years would likely have been seen as permanently unclean, lowly, and unworthy. Yet who is our Savior in heaven! Indeed, the Bible records that He called her ‘daughter’ (no one else is recorded in the Bible as receiving this great honor) and told her to take heart, saying that her faith had healed her. In this one moment, she was not only healed but she was seen.
Then there is the story of the Shunammite woman and the parents of John the Baptist, which has a common thread that connects both characters in the bible. The two were both childless but still actively serving God, and had both given up on ever having children. The Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4:8-17 was a hospitable woman from the town of Shunem who regularly welcomed the prophet Elisha into her home, even building a small upper-room suite for him to stay in during his travels, but she did not have a child even though she longed for one. However so moved was Elisha by her kindness and love for God that the prophet promised her that God would bless her with a son. She struggled to believe this promise because she had been so disappointed in the past and as a result was scared to hope (2 Kings 4:16-17). Nonetheless, even in her hopelessness God saw her and blessed her with a child. Then we have the story of John the Baptist’s father, a priest named Zechariah in Luke 1:5-25, who at a time when he and his wife were already advanced in age and had accepted that they would never have children, an angel appeared to him and announced that he would be blessed with a son. That his son would prepare the way for Christ (Luke 1:16-17). There are many spiritual gems to be found in this story, but what stands out the most to me is when the Angel of the Lord says that God had heard his prayer (Luke 1:14). So, all the times he had prayed to God to bless him with a child and it had not been answered in his preferred time, God had heard. He had seen him, but it had not been the right time. This blesses and encourages me so much because when you pray for something for a long time and with great consistency, but nothing changes, nothing moves, you can be left feeling unseen, powerless and forgotten. This statement by the Angel of God lets me know that even in those moments when things do not change or happen like I want it to, God sees me.
We also have the story of Jonah who through his obedience to God helped to save the people of Nineveh from destruction as a result of their sin. However, Jonah was not happy that God had forgiven them after they repented. Jonah became angry because he felt they deserved judgement and not God’s mercy. Jonah was mad at God because He is “gracious and compassionate… slow to anger and abounding in love”—and hence showed mercy when the people of Nineveh repented (Jonah 4: 2-3). The most interesting thing about chapter 4 of Jonah to me is that even as Jonah threw a tantrum God still saw him and indulged him just for a while and created room for him in this moment to be vulnerable about how he truly felt, which we all can all agree was not Jonah’s most flattering moment as a prophet. God allowed him to sit in his emotions and to acknowledge them, but only for a little while, but Jonah it seems did not want to surrender or heal from his negative feelings, and instead wanted to stay in them beyond what was healthy. So, although Jonah overstayed in his tantrum, the story gives me great comfort knowing that God has room for my negative human emotions. He may not want me to sit in them for too long because that eventually leads to bad fruit, but He understands. He sees me even when I am not at my best and still choses me.
Lastly, there is the story of a woman who I believe is frequently misunderstood and unfairly labelled as a villain, yet God still saw her. It is the story of Hagar, Abraham’s concubine and the mother of his son Ishmael. She was purchased in Egypt, and served as a maid to Sarah, Abraham’s wife (Gen. 16:1–16; 21:8–21). Sarah, unable to have children, gave Hagar to Abraham to bear an heir, and I can imagine being a slave Hagar did not have much of a choice in the matter. Hagar conceived a son, Ishmael, but her relationship with Sarah became strained, leading to tension and mistreatment. As a result, she took her son and ran away, and there in the wilderness, alone and feeling rejected, God saw her. There she encountered an angel of the Lord who comforted her, telling her to return and submit to Sarah, promising that her son would become the father of a great nation. In the wilderness, God assured her that Ishmael would survive and prosper, and she named the place where the encounter took place “Beer-lahai -roi,” meaning “the well of the Living One who sees me.”
Hagar’s exact words in Genesis 16: 13-14 were: She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen[a] the One who sees me.” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi[b]; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
I could go on and on, because our God is a God who sees us, and there is never a moment in our lives when we are unseen by our Father and Creator. In the mountain tops or in the valleys, at our best and worst we have a God who truly sees us, and chooses to stay but only if we allow Him in!
Pic by: Ramakrishna Rathore