The God Who Sees

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”

- Genesis 16:13

I’m currently doing a Bible study on the women of the Bible, and every time I study them, I walk away encouraged as a woman myself. When you step back and look at the story of Scripture, you see the incredible variety of women God used to move His redemptive story forward. Mothers, widows, prophetesses, slaves, prostitutes, and even a woman delivered from seven demons. God honors women in His story, and it’s important we remember that.

This past week we studied Hagar, the Egyptian slave who served Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Her story is filled with tension and conflict between the two women. Hagar became the woman who bore Abraham his first son because Sarah, who was barren, tried to fulfill the promise of God in her own way rather than waiting for the son the Lord had promised.

Within just a few chapters of Genesis, Hagar finds herself in the wilderness twice. The first time she fled on her own because of the way she was being treated. The second time she was cast out. Yet in both moments, when she ran and when she was rejected…God saw her.

The First Wilderness

What I love about Hagar’s story is the way God reveals Himself.

In Genesis 16, when Hagar fled into the wilderness because of how she was being treated by her mistress, she was alone and pregnant. It is in this moment that we encounter something remarkable, the first time in Scripture that the phrase “the Angel of the Lord” appears.

In many places throughout the Old Testament, the Angel of the Lord is understood to be a visitation from the pre-incarnate Christ. If that is the case here, and many scholars believe it is, then we have a beautiful and powerful picture of our Lord Jesus revealing Himself long before His earthly birth.

And who does He reveal Himself to as “an Angel of the Lord”? Not a king. Not a prophet. Not even Abraham. He reveals Himself to a woman…an Egyptian slave. What a profound prophetic picture. Long before the gospel would spread to the nations, God was already demonstrating that His story would include the Gentiles.

God could have easily allowed Hagar and her unborn child to perish in the desert. But He didn’t. Instead, He sought her out in her desperation. Hopeless, alone, and without a plan, she was met by the God who sees. It was in this encounter that Hagar came to know the God of Abraham personally. She had come from a land filled with mute idols — stones and statues that could not speak or hear. Now she lived among Abraham’s household, hearing about the God of Abraham, learning about Him from a distance. But here in the wilderness she experiences Him for herself.

The God of Abraham sees her. He speaks to her. And, He comforts her with a promise. Through her, God says, He will multiply her descendants into multitudes, beginning with the son she is carrying. She is told to name him Ishmael, which means “God hears.”

So moved is Hagar by this visitation that she gives God a name. She declares, “You are the God who sees me,” becoming the first person in the Bible recorded as giving God a name — El Roi, the God who sees.

The Second Wilderness

Hagar’s second journey into the wilderness looks very different from the first.

Years have passed. Ishmael has been born and is now about fourteen years old. Sarah, her mistress, has also given birth to a son, Isaac, the long-awaited son of promise through whom God’s covenant would continue, ultimately leading to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. But the tension between the two women only grows, eventually leading to the casting of Hagar and Ishmael out of the camp, sent away with little more than bread and a skin of water. Once again Hagar finds herself in the wilderness, but this time she is not alone. Her son is with her.

When the water runs out, they reach the point of complete desperation. Believing that death is near, Hagar places Ishmael at a distance because she cannot bear to watch him die. In her anguish, she lifts her voice and weeps.

And the God who sees, visits her again. Genesis 21:17–21 says:

“What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink. So God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. He dwelt in the Wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Once again, God sees. Once again, God provides.

Two Nations, One Faithful God

Ishmael did indeed become a great nation. His descendants spread throughout the Middle East. Isaac also grew into a great nation, the people of Israel. And, just as there are twelve tribes that descended from Isaac through Jacob, there were also twelve princes that descended from Ishmael. Both lineages continue to live out promises spoken by God long ago. And just as their mothers lived in tension and conflict with one another, the descendants of these two sons continue to live in conflict to this very day.

Yet the God who sees is still at work.

In the same way that God revealed Himself to Hagar in the wilderness, He is still revealing Himself to her descendants today. Across the Middle East, there are countless testimonies of people experiencing supernatural encounters with what many describe as “the Man in White”, Jesus Christ Himself. Through dreams, visions, and miraculous encounters, many in the Middle East are coming to know the Messiah and leaving behind belief systems they once followed. It is a remarkable move of God not happening to any other people group (that we know of yet) but happening among a people whose story began with a desperate woman in the wilderness.

To the descendants of Isaac, God is also revealing Himself only in different ways. But the same truth remains…the God who sees is still seeing, still moving, and still meeting people in their desperation.

The God Who Sees You

Hagar’s story is not just about the past. It is a reminder for us today. The same God who saw Hagar in the wilderness sees you. Whatever you are walking through, whatever wilderness you may feel surrounded by, He sees you. He hears you. He hears the cries you whisper in the night when no one else is listening.

Sometimes the wilderness isn’t the end of the story, it’s the place where the God who sees, speaks. And when He speaks, despair gives way to hope, and the path forward begins to appear.

God Bless You,

Carole