Day 018: Seeing the God Who Sees You (Genesis 16-18)

¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing, for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Genesis 16:13

Through the Bible: Genesis 19-21

Today, we read about Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant, naming God “El-Roi:” the God Who Sees, saying “Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me” (Gen. 16:13).

The New International Version says “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

This is the only place in Scripture where an individual directly addresses God with a newly articulated name in response to a personal encounter—and God receives it.

All the other names of God were either given by God or were altars to God that became accepted as names of God.

Don’t miss the fact that the only person who is allowed to name God is a woman. And not even a Jewish woman–an Egyptian slave. But Hagar–Egyptian, slave, outcast, single mother–this woman dares to give a name to God. And God accepts her naming.

In his great book Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer defines contemplation as “looking at God, looking at you, in Love.” In the Greek, the word translated contemplation means to gaze or behold. This is what the Psalmist longs for:

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭27‬:‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Through Paul, God promises that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor. 3:18).

The ongoing process of transformation involves us seeing the One who sees us. Comer says, “We become more and more beautiful, like Jesus, over time, through simple, daily contemplation.”

Looking at Jesus looking at us in love.

Contemplation was not what Hagar was thinking about when she named God El-Roi. She was crying out in desperation. And In Genesis 21, the God Who Sees becomes the God who Hears. He hears the sound of her weeping, and He says, “Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is” (Gen. 21:17).

The God who hears, still hears.

And through His Word, we can say with Hagar, “Truly I have seen Him who sees me.”

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