El Roi, You are The God Who Sees
Genesis 16:13
Over the course of my life, this is the name of God that I have
believe has had the greatest impact on me. In my younger years, though, I
fought the truth of the meaning of this in my life. I did not believe that God
really was the God who sees. I believed that He only saw me in my sin and He
turned His back on me and left me where I was to figure out how to get myself
out of the mess and the mud I had gotten myself into. I was not raised in a
Christian household or in the church. Although my mom has always been a
believer, it was not until recent years that she began living out her faith. So
growing up, I remember going to church off and on with my grandma, and hearing
about God and Jesus, knowing he died on the cross, but knowing nothing about
his desire for, nor my need for, a relationship with Him. In fact, as a
teenager, hearing that he had died for me on a cross, actually made me want to
try and run and hide from him out of shame and embarrassment, knowing that I
was not worthy of that sacrifice, and therefore I felt incredibly guilty. There
was so much I never understood about God, especially that He was my Father. My
own father was an alcoholic and my only memories of him as a child are that of
drunkenness and verbal rage. So, my youth and young adulthood were spent really
trying to rebel in almost every way possible in order to prove to God once and
for all that I was not worth his love nor his sacrifice for me.
But God- the God who sees all.
All of this resulted in a life lived behind many masks. In high
school, the mask was to be the good girl in front of authority and the wild,
party girl when outside the sight of any authority. That continued into
college, except that I dropped the mask in front of authority. I had moved out
on my own and had virtually rid my life of authority so the only mask I clung
to was to be the life of the party and make sure everyone around me was happy
and having a good time.
Later on in life, after having met my husband, having had given
my life to the Lord, the mask became having the appearance of being the good
Christian wife and mother. I knew Jesus, I had a relationship with him, I did
love Him, but I just did not understand that He really did love me and had
forgiven me, and had cleansed me and made me whole. I knew it in my head but I
had not yet allowed it to be written in my heart.
Years later, Matt and I had been serving on the mission field
for several years. I really and truly had grown in my relationship with the
Lord, but I was still so very independent. I still had not accepted the fact
that God truly loved me to the depths that I read in His word and had forgiven
me. I believed it for others but I still did not really believe it for myself.
I found myself in a dry, dry place- a wilderness.
Hosea 2:14--'Therefore Behold, I will allure her, will bring her
into the wilderness to comfort her. I will give her her vineyards from there,
and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope. She shall sing there, as in the days
of her youth, as in the days when she came up from the land of Egypt.'
Even though I believed God had forgotten me, He met me in the
place of my wilderness. Even though I had run from Him, He met me where I was at and drew me close to Him. It was irresistible. He was irresistible.
But God. He is the God who sees all.
After a lifetime of trying to hide behind masks, of trying to
cover who I really was, I finally saw the One who sees all. I had been a
Christian for years, been serving on the mission field nearly five years, had
harbored bitterness, anger, rage, fear, and shame for years and finally
recognized that there was hope.
The valley of Achor means trouble- and God takes that place of
trouble in our lives and He is our Hope in the midst of the trouble.
But there must be a transformation of our hearts. We must give
God everything and as we give him everything we must do it with open hands and
freely give it to him and let him do with our heart what he sees best.
Ezekiel 36:26
'I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I
will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.'
The last five years of my walk with Jesus have been learning to
live without my former reactions, my former thoughts, my former heart. God has
given me a new heart of flesh where there once was a heart of stone. He has
redeemed my years of the false belief that abuse had made me dirty and shameful
to him, that he had left me and abandoned me as a child, that my rebellion as a
teenager and young adult had caused me to be unloved by him, and therefore that
he had tossed me aside, and that he had turned his eyes from me as a young wife
and mom, that he had forgotten me in my wilderness.
But God, who is the God who sees all.
I now know and walk in freedom of all of my former ways and my
former beliefs. I now believe and live in the truth that God is the One who
sees all. He never left me, not once. In every moment where I felt alone,
incapable of being loved by Him, He was there. He saw it all, but none of it
caused him to flee from me, even though I tried to flee from him. Instead, He
has pursued me and allured me and has restored me and freed me and healed me
and loves me.
Ezekiel 36:27-29;33
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and you will keep My judgements and do them. Then you shall dwell in
the land that I gave to your father's; you shall be My people; and I will be
your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness...thus says the Lord
God: On that day I will cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also
enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt.'
That is exactly what He has done in my life- He has cleansed me from all of my uncleanness, all of my sin. He has rebuilt the ruins and the mess I had made of my life, redeemed me from a pit, and restored my marriage and my life. He has shown me my worth in Him. He has never once left me.
He
is the God who sees all.
