Jehovah Jireh– I AM the God Who Sees You

I think anyone who has an inkling about what God can do probably believes that God sees everything, all the time... like Santa Claus, only more so. This is a rather uncomfortable idea, and I'm guessing mankind generally prefers not to think about it. Very understandable. But today we are going to think about it, and explore all kinds of layers that this "seeing" encompasses.

Backstory, or actually, two: one time there was an old guy named Abram who was married to an old lady named Sarai. They had no children. When Abram is 99 years old, the Lord Almighty shows up and says "Bro, listen up! I'm going to give you three promises: First, I'm going to make you the father of many nations, and kings will be your descendants. Second, I'll establish a covenant between Me and you and your children forever. Third, I'll give you and your children the land of Canaan forever. Also, I'm going to change your name, and your wife's, too. Let's add some H. 'Abraham and Sarah', yeah, that's good. I'm going to bless your wife and she's going to give you a son."a 

When Abraham is 100 years old, he and Sarah are joined by bouncing baby boy Isaac, the promised child, the child of promise. Woohoo! Everything sounds hunky-dory, right? Well, it's actually a little bit of a sore subject for Abraham and Sarah. The time between God first giving Abram the promise of this child and said child actually arriving was 25 years fraught with anxiety and mistrust and shady deals, and even a son by someone who was not Sarai. In fact, it was Sarai who got so antsy that God wouldn't deliver that she took matters into her own hands, giving her young and fertile servant Hagar to Abram so at the very least some child could be produced. This was a horribly bad idea that resulted in the women despising each other, and the abuse and escape of Hagar to the wilderness. b 

Next we see one of the truly amazing and wonderful things about God–  that is, how He doesn't scarper in the face of our horribly bad ideas. 

Hagar is met in the wilderness, in her fleeing, in the injustice, by an angel of the Lord, who gives her a promise: "Go back to Sarai," he said. "I will make your children too many to count. You are pregnant now– you will have a son, and you'll name him Ishmael, because the Lord listened to your affliction."* 

Hagar responds, and declares "You are El Roi- the God who sees me! Have I really gotten to look at the one who looks after me?"

If you want to, you can read the whole sordid tale starting in Genesis 12 through to chapter 21, when Isaac finally gets born, and Hagar and Ishmael are exiled. We, however, will jump into Genesis chapter 22, and see this stunt that God pulls on Abraham. 

"Abraham!" says the Lord Almighty, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." 

"Oh wait, now, hold up!" you may be thinking. "How rude can you get? This story was already pretty sketchy, but God all of a sudden demanding as a sacrifice this son that He promised for years to give to Abraham?? That really takes the giddy biscuit. How can anyone claim that a god who would do this is loving? How can a god like this be trusted??" This reaction is completely understandable, and is actually one likely to show up many times throughout our lives. I know it can be hard, but I encourage you to sit tight and watch, because God keeps His promises.

Abraham hears this surprising edict, and surprisingly obeys. He gets up early the next morning, packs up what he needs for the burnt offering, loads his donkey, and he and Isaac and two other young men set off for the mountains. After traveling three days, Abraham looks up and sees The Place, and tells the two young men "stay here with the donkey, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back to you." Old man and young man set off, but the young man is not so dumb. "Father! Where's the lamb for a burnt offering?" he asks. "The Lord will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son," Father replies.

It seems that Isaac trusts Abraham absolutely, because there is no record of his protest as Abraham ties him up and lays him on the altar he has built. It seems also (to me, at least) that Abraham trusts God absolutely– he trusts Him so absolutely with his son, and to keep His promise, and to provide a sacrifice for Himself, that even though what God has asked of him makes absolutely no sense, he allows that trust to carry his actions all the way to the point of raising the knife high above his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loves, until the Lord he trusts says otherwise. 

Oh, hallelujah, the Lord says otherwise. 

"Abraham! No, stop, don't! Don't do anything to the boy, for now I know you fear God, seeing how you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me... Because you've done this and obeyed me, surely I will bless you!"

Then Abraham looks up and sees a ram stuck in the bushes, and sacrifices the beast to the Lord in place of his son. He names the place Jehovahjireh: "in the mountain of the Lord it shall be seen."

Jehovah Jireh: I AM the Lord that Sees

El Roi: God Who Sees

What does it mean?

The root of the Hebrew word jireh is "ra-ah," and in its various tenses, it means: 

"To see, observe, perceive, watch, learn about, find out, gaze at."

"To appear, present oneself, to be seen, to be visible."

"To cause to see, to show."

"To cause to be seen, be shown."

"To look at each other, to face."c

What's God saying about Himself here?

In both the situation with Abraham and with Hagar, it's clear that God is watching, and watching over, them. He is privy to the plight of His people. He has a vision for their futures that in no way can they see, and He shows Himself to them and makes known His plans to them. He promises, and in spite of all, He delivers.

This is immense. To be in need, and to have somebody not only see your need but show up and be very present right in the midst of the trouble with you, and then illuminate a way out of the predicament– that is a powerful act of grace. That is so much relief. This is who the Lord God is, this is what He does.

I've said before that each name God has tells us not only something about Him, but also implies something about us, and I think this name in particular is strongly indicative of relationship. He is the Lord that sees us, and He is the Lord that wants to be seen by us. We are visible to Him, and He wants to show us Himself. There is a longing for this face-to-face kind of relationship– one of trust and comfort and intimacy. This is true about us not just because He promises it, but also because the covenant He made with us in Jesus. 

For a minute let's talk about how God sees His people in the midst of struggle and shows His deliverance with an explicit "look up and see!" He does this for Hagar (see Genesis 21:19, when Ishmael is about to die of thirst in the wilderness) and Abraham. It happens again with Moses and the Israelites. The Israelites had been complaining like whiny little brats about how God– who had miraculously delivered them from their oppressive slave-drivers in Egypt– was feeding them as they traveled through the wilderness to the Promised Land (that would be the land God promised to Abraham referenced at the beginning of this post.)d

Now, like any reasonable parent whose children complain ad nauseam about their cooking, God got fed up and sent poisonous snakes into the Israelites' camp. These lethal nope ropes duly swarmed in and bit the ingrates, many of whom died. This uncomfortable situation abruptly opened the eyes of the Israelites, who went straight to Moses to repent, "We sinned against the Lord, and you. Please pray for God to take the snakes away!" So Moses prayed.

Interestingly, God did not take the snakes away. Instead, He told Moses "make a fiery serpent and put it on a pole, and anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses does. What I love about this solution of the Lord's is something Ben pointed out to me a long time ago: if the ground is covered in poisonous snakes, where are you going to be looking? You will, in fact, be looking at the ground. Self-preservation demands it! ...even though you'd be fighting a losing battle. God is providing an answer that's at the very least counter-intuitive: look up. 

This story from Numbers is a really fantastic illustration of what God does later on a much larger scale. His people, created for relationship, are beset by the poisonous swarm of sin and snares, and cursed in our efforts to save ourselves by our own judgment... and the Father says the most unnatural and almost offensive thing: look up. 

Jesus gets it: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." (John 3:14) "I see you. I see the problem. Lift up your eyes: I have your answer. I AM your answer. Look at me." 

It's from this vantage point that we are delivered from our predicaments, and that the promises of God are delivered to us. This is the relationship. 

Pause for a moment and take a look at yourself. Use a mirror if you've got one handy. You are very real, and this life that you're living is very real. Every one of the broader aspects of a life lived in this broken world is represented in your particular lived experience: joy, pain, contentment, grief, peace, suffering, laughter, fear, happiness, anger. You live it all, but you don't live any of it in isolation. You are not alone– not just because you're living your variation of life alongside billions of other humans, but because the One who formed you lives it with you, as close to you as yourself. Your life is not invisible. Your experiences are seen, all your thoughts are heard, all your emotions held. You are thoughtfully considered and acknowledged by the Creator of the Universe, and it doesn't end there. He has a vision for your life that He invites you to imagine. He has plunked Himself down in the very middle of your pain and said "I'm not leaving." His comfort enfolds you when you cry out. His answer is ready when you look up.  

In all the stories mentioned here, God's promise didn't guarantee the "and they lived happily ever after" ending we’d hope for... at least, not by our standards or on our timeline. There is still struggle, there is still hurt, there are still misunderstandings, miscommunication, and even mistreatment in the midst of our deliverance and the goodness in life. But the presence of those hard things does not nullify the deliverance or the goodness. And thankfully, when it comes to happy endings, God is playing the longest game, and He arranges the happiest endings. 

He sees you, He sees it, and He's going to show you Himself and see to it.

a- Genesis 17 (Faith Paraphrased Version)

b- Genesis 16

c- definitions taken from blueletterbible.org

d- Numbers 21:4-9

*Ishmael means "God hears." I just really love the juxtaposition of the name Ishmael within the story of the name Jehovah Jireh.