I FEEL... AloneSample

Seen in the Wilderness

“She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me.’” – Genesis 16:13 (NIV)

Hagar had been used, then dismissed. She was a servant with no standing, pregnant and alone, sitting by a spring in the desert after fleeing from a household where she had been mistreated. By every measure, she was invisible. No position, no advocate, no one paying attention to what had happened to her.

And then God spoke to her.

Not to Abraham, who held all the social and spiritual authority in the story. Not to Sarah, whose pain had driven the situation. But to Hagar, alone in the wilderness, unseen by everyone who mattered in her world. The God of the universe tracked her down in the desert and addressed her by name and by situation.

Her response to that encounter became one of the most remarkable statements in all of Scripture.

You are the God who sees me.

She was not naming a theological category. She was responding to a personal experience. She had been invisible to people, and God had found her. She had expected to be overlooked, and instead she had been sought out, spoken to, and given a promise.

That encounter happened in the wilderness, not despite it.

Whatever wilderness you are sitting in today, you are not invisible there. The God who found Hagar by a spring in the desert is the same God who is aware of exactly where you are right now, and He has not finished speaking.

Prayer

God who sees, I have felt invisible to the people around me. Remind me today that You are not one of them. You see where I am, You know what has happened, and You are here. Let that be enough for today. Amen.