Elroi: The God Who Sees Me Podcast Episode

As we encounter individuals who are in places of brokenness, pain, and rejection, what does it look like to see them, to engage them? We have a picture of that here from God himself, and I think that’s instructive for us as we walk in this path of life, to be able to have a model of God like this.

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Excellent as always, to have you along. Kaleb Byer is with me here today. Great to have you here, Kaleb. Good to be with you. Matt. You know, Kaleb, the biblical narrative is expansive and it’s a huge story from start to finish with twists and turns, subplots and parallel stories and characters of every shape and stripe. Yes, indeed. And sometimes the narrative, again from Genesis to Revelation and the players and the children of Israel and all of the rest, sometimes it’s a wild tale full of interference, man interfering with God’s plans, it would appear, making really poor choices. Again, and again and yet you see a God orchestrating and shepherding and guiding this thing. And I think one of the beauties, Kaleb, is having the Scriptures be a story

I don’t know. An interesting thought about seeing the Scriptures as a story is you can find yourself in it. I am not sure I can find, for example, myself in the legal code of the United States as many volumes as that would be. That’d be interesting, Matt.

I mean, I would find, oh, I think this applies to me, or, oops, I didn’t know that. Sure. Yeah. But I’m not sure I would be really drawn into a place where I really can’t connect and relate or really feel seen. But the biblical narrative, I dare say, will capture the heart of every human. Yeah. There is no human experience that lies outside of this story, which is quite phenomenal. Oh, it’s beautiful. I mean, who would’ve thought the Creator of humanity is able to speak to our hearts, cry, struggle, and joy in a way that no one else can through his story of redemption.

Yeah, and it’s so near to the human experience, and so we’re going to go down one of those difficult stories here today. Because God revealed himself in a tremendous way that without this heartbreaking story, we might not see God for who he is. And that’s Hagar’s story. And even thinking and talking about her story is just hard, to the reality of the life that she walked and the life that she lived is both incredibly difficult and also beautiful.

You know, when I read Hagar’s story, I find myself trying to look away. I find myself trying to maybe move quickly past it. Because it’s really too painful. I find myself not wanting to be imaginative about it. Mm. I say David and Goliath. I love to be imaginative about that and linger on the story. Well, let’s just imagine how big he was. Let’s just imagine the kind of insults he was slinging. Let’s just imagine the approach of David. No, I linger with that story. Yeah. Hagar, I don’t. It’s too painful to linger with. Yeah. So, bring us up to speed again. Who was she? What was her plight?

I guess. Let’s linger here a little bit. Yeah, so it’s interesting that even early on in chapter 16, right as the story goes, is it makes it very clear that she was Egyptian, right? It begins with her story in beginning to unpack who she was as far as you know, her history and so she’s this Egyptian and also this handmaid to Sarah? Yeah. Abraham’s wife. Yeah. Starting there. Egyptian, she’s an outsider from the start, isn’t she? Right. She’s a handmaid or a slave to Sarah. So, she’s not home? No, in fact, her name means a stranger or sojourner. So even her name, it’s not just the sense of who she was as far as where she lived, and now she’s in a different land altogether like her name was.

So that’s super profound and I didn’t know that. And names are really important in this story. We’re going to hear a few more names. It would be hard for me to ever feel like I was home if I was always being called stranger. Yeah. At some level that just shapes your reality. Yeah, for sure. In the way we view ourselves, we take on names, and that is self-reflection, and it helps us make sense of who we are as an identity and that type of thing. Yeah. So, she’s an Egyptian stranger, handmade to Sarah. Yeah. And so, we know as the story goes, Sarah is unable to bear children.

And I think at one point in the story, for 10 years they were in the land and still she is without a child. And so, of course, Sarah approaches Abram and then gives him her handmaid to bear a child. Which at that time it was not uncommon to give her handmaid to bear children so that they might have lineage passed on in her name.

Exactly. And if we just pause there and think about God’s design for a man and a woman in marriage, and just as this story unfolds and the mess that it creates. A mess of relationships is a result of what is carried out. Relationships are not arrangements. Right. While that may have been customary, being deeply human has been consistent throughout the ages, you just can’t do it with relationships. Yeah. Good point. So, fallout is going to be likely. Exactly. Let’s just try that on for size. What would it look like?

How would that make a person feel. Okay, I’m going to marry your husband and then my child’s going to be yours. Is that what that means? Yeah. Okay. And do I have a choice in this? There wasn’t an indication that Hagar had necessarily a choice. But she certainly obeys her mistress or master. And so, it’s interesting in the story, once she becomes pregnant, we see this shift relationally that happens between Sarah and Hagar. Yes. And ultimately it leads to Sarah treating Hagar very poorly. Again, we don’t know exactly what that was. To the point though that Hagar eventually flees. She leaves.

Where was she even going? Yeah, right. The desperation in that time to flee the safety of the camp is probably hard to understand in our frame of reference. Yep. And at some level, I imagine, I don’t know if this accurate, she would’ve known to some level the wilderness that she had journeyed through from Egypt to where she lived.

And so, but still as a pregnant woman beginning to journey what appears to be back to Egypt but just fleeing with the pain of rejection in the story for sure. Not seen by Sarah, Abram, and God, right? Experiencing at some level the sense of God.

Where are you in this story? I mean, she checks all the boxes of an abused woman. For sure. Assaulted in many ways. Yeah. Alone, rejected, uncared for, abandoned. Yeah. Certainly. She’s on the run. Yeah. But this is back to where you started, Matt, A heart wrenching story of pain and aloneness that again, to this level, I don’t know that there are people that experience this, but the broad majority don’t. However, all of us have experienced feeling alone, feeling unseen, feeling uncared for at some level or another. And so, while again, it may not be to that depth but at some level, being human is to experience that.

And it’s an epidemic in the US. So, her humanity was offended in a multitude of ways, which she finds herself now in the wilderness. Am I right? Despairing for life. Yeah. And grieving, you have to imagine and maybe in some sense, shock. I mean, thinking, going through this the sense of some level she was living her life comfortably cared for, provided for because there’s no indication prior to her pregnancy that Sarah treated her poorly in any way.

I mean, the Scriptures don’t say anything about that. Yeah. So, there’s a loss of relationship here too. Yeah, for sure. We have reason to believe that there was a good relationship between Sarah and Hagar. After all, Sarah was going to entrust Hagar to this. Yeah. And the whole idea.

What do you do with Abram in this story? Yeah. A husband now who doesn’t speak up, he doesn’t step in, but says she’s yours, do with her what you’d like. He said that to Sarah. Yeah. So, Hagar is on the outside alone. What happens in the wilderness? It’s interesting in the story, so I don’t know how exactly it’s pronounced, but the way of Shur.

And if you look at the meaning of that word, it literally is a wall. She comes to this place. You called it what? The way of Shur. Yeah. So, in the text the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And if you look at the meaning of that word, it literally is a wall.

And I don’t fully understand, Matt, if it’s like a wall of mountains or actually something that Egypt built for protection. But as I think about that and the journey that she was on, and I think for all of us, there comes a place where we just hit a wall, you know? Yeah. Emotionally, like hitting a wall and that’s what I think about for her.

It was like this point at where you hit this place and that’s where God finds her. In this place of just utter desperation, being overwhelmed, not knowing what to do. You run out of all resources. Sometimes we say the end of the rope, and this is where God finds her.

In what ways did he find her? So, I think it’s interesting, Matt. If we look at this engagement of the Angel of the Lord, which many believe is pre-incarnate Christ, right? The way it’s written in Scripture with capital letters, the angel of the Lord. But the way the angel of the Lord engages her, I think speaks pretty powerfully to us of a God who sees.

So, even if we were to back up, if we didn’t have the Scripture. Just for a second, how would you begin to describe a God who sees and cares? How would you begin to describe what kind of other attributes. Would you say, oh, a God who sees does this, he engages in this way? We have the story here and we get to see the interaction as a response to your question.

I think it perhaps could be said in a number of ways, but without a story, I’m not sure I’d believe it. Yeah, because you need a story in order to really make sense of it, and I think that’s your point. What’s the interaction between God and Hagar look like? So first he engages her by calling her by her name, Stranger.

Yeah. And let’s pause and linger for a moment. You know, whenever somebody comes up unexpectedly and calls me by my name. I immediately think, this person knows me or knows about me. Yeah. There is a grace extended from this person that says, oh, you’ve mattered to me before you even knew, because I know your name.

Yeah. What a powerful moment for Hagar, to be spoken to. Yeah, that’s one way of seeing people. I remember when I was in grad school and there was this professor who, the first day of class, went around the table and he’d look at you and of course he knew the names from coming in, but he’d say, Matt, tell me a little bit about you. And throughout the engagement, he’d spend a couple minutes on everyone. He’d say Matt, several times, and by the end of that class period, he knew everybody’s name and there was something very connecting and intimate about that.

You felt seen and heard. Yes. Yeah. And he hardly even knew me. I met him once. Yeah. You know, but that sense that, oh, it’s important that he’s able to call each of us by our name really meant something. The irony of whether it was Jesus pre-incarnate or not to say Stranger says a lot, doesn’t it? Yeah. Because what it says is that she’s not. Yes. Which is fascinating. Yeah. He calls her by her name. What does he say? Well, then he asks her questions, which again, you know, is an interesting thing. Right. God asking questions. The God who knows all things. Yeah. Asking questions. He’s up to something if he’s asking questions.

What were his questions? So, where did you come from? That was the first question he asked. And where are you going? You know, just like, I see you here, a stranger in the middle of nowhere. You came from somewhere and you’re going somewhere. What are you up to?

You know? Those questions prompt a real spilling of the matter, don’t they? Yeah. You know, we often ask, how are you doing? Yeah. I’m just trying to linger on that Matt. There is a sense of, oh, you have a bit of understanding, but I think it also exposes what she doesn’t know.

I think it’s really fascinating. You know, you’re right. We do ask how are you doing, which is kind of a point-in-time question, which is far subpar to the questions, Kaleb, of where have you come from and where are you going? Yeah. And how you feel is probably pretty relevant to those two questions. But it’s the context of how you’re feeling that actually is going to make sense. Yeah.  So, it doesn’t surprise me that God has a, a more meaningful salutation.

Yeah. Maybe questions I need to start asking, where are you headed, Matt? Yeah. You know, they are intimate questions, aren’t they? Those are intimate. Those questions are from one who cares to see. Yeah. So, she has dialogue with God then. Yes, she says I’m fleeing from the face of my mistress, Sarah is what the text reads. And then God engages her from that place. So, he has engagement with her, and the first thing he says gets her to honesty, doesn’t he?  Yeah. I mean, she was honest. Yeah. I’m fleeing. He brings her to a place of honesty. Yeah. Anyway, and then he goes on, and the next portion of Scripture is really about the Lord speaking to her from the place of her need and desperation. He spends time engaging her to return, but he doesn’t send her back without a substantial transformational encounter.

And so, in what ways was it transformational? Yeah. One, he gives her a promise. The fact that I’m going to multiply your seed. You know, you think about the stranger, the one who is a nobody who is uncared for and unseen. He says, I’m going to multiply your seed. And we know that she comes from a place of a slave.

He’s going to make her a legend, a mother of a nation. And we’re talking about her here today. Isn’t that something too that God went to the core of the matter and that was the pregnancy? He gets to the very root. He goes there and he addresses the womb. What else does he say about the child? He gives her a name for the child, which isn’t just a name I didn’t expect it would be. He’s way too clever for that. Yeah. The actual text says, behold, thou art with child and shall bear a son and shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has heard your affliction.

And Ishmael means that the Lord has heard me. So, in another translation, for the Lord has heard your painful groans. Oh, that’s even deeper. Yes. So, there’s a sense that God’s response to naming this child is out of seeing her painful groans. Yeah. Right. He is being responsive.

Her agony was voice in and of itself that he heard. That’s being heard. Yeah, I think so. God does see a matter of hearing and seeing. That is deep and engaged and then he gives this beautiful reminder the rest of her days. When she calls Ishmael in from the field she is going to be reminded. Yeah. I remember God hears me. He hears me. And so, at this point in the story, in verse 13, is really where she names God, right? Verse 13, and she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, thou God sees me, for she said, have I also here looked after him that sees me, which is a question.

So, there are several things in that, right? Where else in Scripture do you see someone who names God to begin with? Yeah, only the greats do. And here is a slave girl that speaks to a God who sees, which again, if you think about if this was an individual who grow up in the palace, let’s say, had everything they needed for a secure home, good family environment, and they said God’s a God who sees, that’d be one thing.

But this is another thing. God has been named the one who sees and hears by the only one who could purely name him. Right? Mm-hmm. Hagar did. That’s cool. And then it’s almost like she’s in a place of worship. I get to see God, the one who sees. When individuals walk through this level of pain, one of the things that transforms it is by being seen. I’m not alone in it. And again, it’s one thing to be seen, but seen by God. Well, she was able to go back, right? Yes.

And that’s proof enough. Yeah. Why was she able to go back? Because she knew she was going back with God. He was the God who sees. Yeah. Which is amazing, and that’s what I think you meant by that’s a transformative encounter with God. Now things aren’t going to go completely smoothly for Hagar. This isn’t the last we hear of her. No. In fact, she’s going to be in another similar place. Just fast forward a little bit to that place.

So, with this transformation, this encounter, this promise, this sense of being seen, she returns. And of course, Ishmael’s born and continues to grow. And eventually, as we know, Sarah is able to have a child, Isaac. And when Isaac shows up on the scene, there’s an indication in Scripture that the relationship again becomes strained and there’s tension and conflict, and eventually she is sent away. Sarah comes to Abraham, engages him, and asks him to send her away.

Abraham is grieved because of Ishmael but God sanctions that. Yeah. And so, she’s on the run again but with the child. Yeah. And so, she’s in another desperate place and God finds her, and if I remember the story right, she separates herself from Ishmael so as to not see him die.

Yes. Can you imagine not to bear to look on him in that place and God shows up again. He shows up again with a conversation and a promise, doesn’t he? There’s something really, really deep and I’m having a hard time even putting my hands and my thoughts around it. God blessed, promised, listened, heard, was present with some of these really, really difficult parts of the story that even he perhaps did not intend. What does that mean for my own harried life of things that were not intended? Is God present in those places? Or does that disqualify me? Do you follow what I’m saying?

Yeah, and I guess, as you’re speaking here, Matt, my mind certainly goes to the fact that he didn’t stop there. He came himself and experienced rejection, shame, being uncared for, and violence of men placed upon him for our sin. And so, he knows even at a deeper level than just the story of Hagar. I mean, he inhabited a body with an intention to win not only all of Isaac’s lineage, but to win all of Ishmael’s lineage. Yeah, and every other lineage to be the savior of the world in that sense, which he foreknew when he had that encounter with Hagar there in the wilderness.

Do you have a takeaway for our listeners as we conclude? Yeah. Well, I think one is that we can learn as we encounter individuals who are in places of brokenness, pain, and rejection. What does it look like to see them? To engage them? We have a picture of that here from God himself. And I think that’s instructive for us as we walk in this path of life, to be able to have a picture, a model, an experience of God like this, and what it looks like to reflect him as we walk.

I think that’s one aspect, and I think another is that for all of us at times, we do experience these feelings. Recently there was a message on Isaiah I think 59. I don’t remember the Scripture exactly where it speaks of the Lord that his hand is not shortened. He’s not one that covers his ears. And yet, in our own experience, at times it does feel that way. And so, what does it look like both to hold our experiences as realities, not denying it, but yet holding onto the truths of Scripture that we know this is a God who is present, who does see, and who does hear.

Yes. And so, as we close, just those two thoughts, Kaleb, that we would be a type of reflection of this God. That would be one takeaway. But most importantly, not to miss the image itself which is the God who sees and the God who hears all of us, every person around the globe in all of the dark places and hard situations, is a super sweet thought.

Yeah. Thanks Kaleb. Thanks for bringing this and sharing that story. We lingered with the story. It’s a story that’s painful to linger on, but yet when you do, God grows the larger for it. Thanks everyone for listening. God bless you.