the God who sees me

Opening Prayer: O Lord my God, I come before you today as one in desperate need of your love and care and guidance.  I cannot possibly know who I am, or what my purpose is, apart from you.  You are the God who sees me and knows me, even better than I see and know myself.  Have mercy on me, O Lord, and reveal to me the answers to the deepest questions of my heart.  Amen.

Scripture: Genesis 16:1-14

Journal: Where have you come from?  What stirs within you as you think about that question?  Where are you going?  What does that question stir up in you?  God is the God who sees you, let him help you to navigate these questions today?

Reflection: The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.  And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:7-8)  

     Where have you come from?  Where are you going?  Leave it to God to ask the best, most heart-probing questions.  For these are two of the most significant questions of life, and they are intimately linked to each other.  One almost always has a significant impact on the other.

     So where have you come from?  What are the things and the people and the experiences that have formed who you are and how you think about things?  How do these experiences affect how you see yourself and how your react in certain situations?  How have these experiences contributed to the patterns and habits you find yourself stuck in these days?  And how are you in need of healing from those experiences, so that you might be the person, and live the life of love and peace and freedom that God most wants you to live?  Like I said, when God asks a question, he doesn’t play around.

     And where are you going?  Where is God leading and guiding you in your life?  What are his deepest hopes and dreams for you?  What are your deepest hopes and dreams for yourself?  And is the life you are actually living headed in that direction?  If not, why not?  What direction is your life headed and how can you align it with the life that God most deeply wants for you?

     These questions alone could be great content for a week-long retreat.  And if we are willing enough and brave enough to really ask them, and then to really listen for the answers, then they can be used of God to chart the course for the life God most deeply wants to live in and through us.  For, in some ways, God is the only one who can help us to know the real answers to these questions.  Some of our issues are buried so deeply in our memories that we have repressed them or avoided them or tried to escape them for decades.  Only “the God who sees us” is able to help us to properly discern and decipher and reflect upon all of this.

     So invite the God who sees you to show you what he sees.  Give him the time and the space to help you accurately answer the questions “Where have you come from?  And where are you going?”  For he is the only one who can.  Blessings on your journey.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: “You are the God who see me.  I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13, NIV)  Thanks be to God!