The God Who Sees Me

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, whose name means "he saves." For believers worldwide, this is a celebration of God's tangible form of redemption from a broken world that has held us captive. It is a time of remembrance, gratitude, victory, and declaration.

I haven't always felt the jubilation of Jesus' birth, though. At a very low point of my life, I felt that I had done so much wrong in my life; God could not see me anymore. My logic was that God cannot be in the presence of sin so He could not be in my presence.

I was dismissed. 

I used various verses as my rationale that God couldn't see me. I embraced the statement that God’s eyes are pure and cannot look upon evil (Habakkuk 1:13). This was partly license for more sin and partly license for self-loathing.

I was justifying.

I couldn't see how I had gotten there. Looking in the reflection of a mirror, I could no longer see who I used to be. Being fearfully and wonderfully made may have been true for other people, but it couldn't have been true for me. I failed to see anything awe-inspiring and wonderful about myself. 

I was aimless. 

The only solace I found was that God could no longer see me and the mess of a failure that I had become. I could do whatever, whenever, and wherever. I could be whomever I wished. I wouldn't be detected and I was off God's grid. 

I was invisible. 

Superficially, I found that to be freeing. Deep down, I was terrified that I wouldn't be spared from this painful, seemingly never ending state of nothingness.

I was demoralized.

Hagar felt much the same way (Genesis 16). The slave of a great leader's wife whose existence was manifestly to do exactly what the boss said. She was the one to provide high levels of comfort to her owner without reciprocation. She had no choice or compensation in bearing a son to her master and mistress. That's pretty degrading to have no option in the fruit deposited in your own womb. 

Hagar endured the pregnancy. This child was meant to be taken from her and annexed to her master's family. She had no claim to her own child. Even though she had accomplished what her mistress set her up to do, Hagar became the object of hatred. 

It was time to break out of the lack. Lack of choice. Lack of ownership. Lack of respect. Lack of dignity. Lack of value. She had had enough. (Haven't we all?) She ran away (verse 6). 

While still on the run, the Angel of the Lord dropped into the middle of Hagar's chaos, in the middle of nowhere. He called her by name. He spoke truth to her. He told her she was going to have a boy. He told her what his name would be (traditionally, the father's duty). He gave her hope and promise.

Hagar had experienced God in a way that she knew He saw her, the real her. She names God, El Roi, the "God who sees me."

Hagar and I have a lot in common. We both saw our lives as spiraling out of control. If any control existed, it was not us that had it. We were incapable of getting a grip on our own lives. We needed refuge despite the impossible looming like a black cloud overhead.

I was desperate. 

Somehow in the midst of mayhem, God appears out of nowhere. Not exactly with the flashing lights of an emergency squad. But when God shows up, lives are changed. Chains are broken. Souls are set free. Criminals are exonerated. 

The "God who sees me" arrived in the nick of time for Hagar. He entered into my disarray in the nick of time, too. He saw me exactly as He created me, not as I saw myself. He saw me as having priceless value, not the damaged goods I thought I was.

I am rescued. 

Christmas is a time of joy. I celebrate the divine plan of God's gift to all of us. We get to unwrap this gift daily because His mercy is new every morning. Jesus is who you need exactly when you need it. It took God's mercy to unveil Hagar's eyes and my eyes, too. We don't always see it. But God saw us.

I am treasured.

May God open our eyes to see that we are seen.