The God Who Sees Me

I don't know why we tend to do this, but we often take on a view of ourselves as others see us. We totally miss out on the view that God has, we miss out on seeing ourselves as He sees us.

I have struggled with this. The reflection in my mirror hasn't always been the reflection of God but the reflection of others. God recently showed me that people see what they want to see. If they choose to be unforgiving, that is what they will see in others. If they choose to be accepting, then acceptance is what they will see. Unfortunately, most people don't (or won't or cant) accept others as God does.

We tend to think that we really know people. But this knowledge often comes from our emotion; how we feel about that person, how much we have interacted with them, what others have said about them. No one truly knows a person. Not like God does.

Some of the closest people in my life, whom I would have thought I knew intimately, have surprised me with things I never would have imagined about themselves or our relationship. When things are going great and you feel on top of the mountain, in the blink of an eye it can all change. The feelings that you thought you had, the person that you thought you knew, the secrets that you thought were safe, can change oh so quickly; leaving you to wonder, "who were they?" or even "who am I?"

I suppose Hagar might have felt this way. The Egyptian slave, who labored for Abram and Sarai (later to be called Abraham and Sarah) did them a great favor. After many years of not being able to conceive a child, Sarai sent Hagar to be with her husband so he might have a child with her.

Hagar did become pregnant and later bore Abram a son. But Sarai became jealous and spiteful to her slave because it wasn't herself pregnant with Abram's child. So Hagar did what most of us would do. She heard the names Sarai called her and she looked in the mirror and saw herself thru Sarai's eyes and she fled.

Hagar needed to see herself as God saw her and while in the desert, Hagar encountered God. She addressed Him as "El Rio" - "the God Who sees me"...

"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 the One Who sees me.' " (Genesis 16:13,14)

Hagar's God is the same God Who sees exactly who you and I are. He knows the exact numbers of hair on our head, He knows when our heart breaks and when we cry all alone, He knows about today, yesterday and tomorrow and He knows the things that we hold secret in the depths of our soul. He knows us like no other because He sees us exactly as we are.

When you look in the mirror today, what do you see? Is your image that of how others see you or how God sees you? Turn around and look again, look at the reflection in the mirror now and ask, "El Rio, how do You see me?"

Please join me today and declare that no one knows us like God and when He sees us, He really sees us!

BLESSINGS. Laurie