The God Who Sees

Have you ever gone through a difficult time of life when you have experienced suffering? When one is going through a long periods of hardship it can cause us to struggle day after day, week after week, and month after month, and we can begin to feel alone. We often wonder, 'Does God even care about me?"

The Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt may have felt that way as well under the rule of Pharaoh. Day after day they suffered abuse at the hand of their captors. Perhaps at night, the tears flowed on their beds and they wondered, "Where is our God?"

Exodus 2:23-25 says, "After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and God knew."

That last sentence, God saw and God knew, reminds us that God sees our struggles and He knows our inner turmoil. He is watching over us and walking with us through the fire even when it seems as if He is absent.

The Israelites had no idea that over 6,000 miles away God was preparing a man to come and deliver them. They didn't realize that Moses would show up on the scene and lead them out of captivity. But God did.

We often can't see a way out of our hardship. We put on a brave front to the world, but in our beds at night, the tears flow and we wonder where God is. We don't know what is happening behind the scenes and how God is preparing the way to lead us out of the darkness. We just have to trust. And trust isn't always easy.

In the next chapter of Exodus, we see God calling to Moses from the burning bush and He says in verses 7-8, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey...”

God will show up and help us through the hard times. He may already be moving behind the scenes and preparing a way out and into a fruitful space in our lives. One of the Hebrew names of God is El Roi, the God who sees me.

Keep trusting, keep looking up, and keep moving forward each day and know that God sees and God knows your pain. He will deliver and make you whole again.