One of the names of God is El Roi, which means, “the God who sees” us in our afflictions. God is aware of our afflictions. When we feel most invisible and forgotten by everyone else, we should remember that God does see us. He sees our struggles and comes alongside us. After all, if he sees the sparrows and takes care of them (Matthew 6:26), how much more would He care for us in our greatest time of need? God does not only see us but remembers us.
Right in the wilderness where Hagar ran away from the persecution of Sarah, God saw her and Ishmael who was in the womb at this time. God said to her in her hour of distress, “And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” (Genesis 16:11-13 NKJV).
Jacob also testifies before Laban that God has seen all his afflictions in the hand of Laban. After serving Laban for twenty years, during which Laban changed his wages ten times, God told Jacob that it was time to move back home. Jacob packed all his belongings and fled Paddan Aram. When Laban was told that Jacob had fled with his family, he pursued them and caught up with them. In the ensuing altercation, Jacob said to Laban these words,
“Thus I have been in your house twenty years; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.” (Genesis 31:41-42 NKJV).
When the children of Israel were in captivity in Egypt, for a long time it looked as if their situation was unnoticed by God. But God later spoke to them acknowledging that he had seen their sufferings. God’s immediate response was to send them a deliverer in the person of Moses.
“And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.” (Exodus 3:7-9 NKJV).
Child of God, know this; that God is not unmindful of your trials. God sees your plight, He also cares and will remember you in due time. The time of distress looks like an endless long night, but no matter how long the night, the morning season would certainly come.
Contact:pastoracukachi@gmail.com
