"The God Who Sees Me"

Scripture Passage For Today

GENESIS 15:1-17:27

Scripture Focus
Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the LORD, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13 NLT)


Observation
Here’s what I know: I’m about to comment regarding a portion of today’s reading that’s hardly at the core of the passage. What an incredible passage—what rich promises God makes to Abram! And how marvelous that “…Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith” (Genesis 15:6 NLT).


But something caught my eye because, I think, of the way this translation (the NLT) phrases Genesis 16:13—“Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord…”


It’s interesting, isn’t it, how significant experiences call for new names and new labels? When that previously reliable automobile has let me down for the third or fourth time, “My Baby” becomes “That Junk Heap”! By contrast, one day a young lady named Debbie was my date. She later became my fiancé, and ultimately became my wife. Each new label had its origin in a significant experience or encounter.


And so it is with Hagar in Genesis 16. (I know, BTW, that this whole scenario seems bizarre to us. But—wrong as it was—please understand that this was a culturally acceptable practice in Abram’s day as a way to assure an heir to any inheritance. It’s surrogate motherhood, without the test tubes.) Back to the point…


Feeling completely rejected and utterly alone, pregnant with her master’s child but severely mistreated by his wife—the one who suggested this whole scheme to begin with—Hagar, at her lowest point, encounters God in a way she never had before—and now has to find new words to describe this God whom she has now seen in an entirely new light. And so she gives him this label: “You are the God who sees me.”


The thing is…we need those experiences, too. We’ll never know all there is of God to know. We’ll never have an adequate quantity or descriptive enough quality of labels to describe the whole of who He is. But oh, how we need those moments and even seasons of life where we have opportunity to see God in a new light…to learn—to know—something about God we hadn’t known before…something so rich and powerful that we can say something new about God we couldn’t say with conviction beforehand.