Emmanuel Day 8
Emmanuel, God with the Unseen
“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 16:13
Sometimes the busy demands of the Christmas season can leave us feeling less than perfect, can’t they? Even when our desires are to bless others and leave them feeling lavished with love and care, it doesn’t always seem to work out the way we’d envisioned it. Cookies burn, wrong presents, wrong sizes, wrong makes and models are bought. We just can’t seem to make it to that tenth Christmas event on time, or worse yet, those we’re waiting for can’t seem to manage their time the way we’d like them to learn to. Have you ever felt the holiday-season-demands closing in on you, and you accidentally find yourself angry at the very ones you were trying to make feel loved? The honest truth is that we won’t always feel like we’re doing everything right, or maybe I should say, that we will actually hardly ever feel like we’re doing anything right. Sometimes the busyness of the season can seem to magnify our imperfections rather than the perfectly perfect perfection that we would like for people to see instead. (Can you tell I’m a recovering perfectionist? Ha!)
When we find our sweet friend Hagar here in the desert, she’s in the middle of a really bad day, and if we knew more about her, we might classify it as a bad day in the middle of a bad life. There’s nothing recorded about her earlier years. We read that she was an Egyptian slave so obviously at some point she was a captive, sold into service. But we have no idea what the “why” was behind her life. Was she born to a poor family that needed money? Was she kidnapped from her home and taken to a marketplace to be sold? Had she sold herself to Abraham in the desperate search for a better life? Whatever the reasoning behind her slavery, we find her here in Genesis, living in the tents of Abraham and Sarah as a handmaiden until, through circumstances that might have felt a bit awkward to her, Hagar ends up pregnant with Abraham’s baby. You have to wonder if it was the first time in Hagar’s life that she felt like she was something special and important. She was placed in competition against the woman whose name meant princess, and she had won the prize of a child. Unfortunately, the problems unfold for this precious girl when the look on her face declared her feelings of special status, and that didn’t set too well with her heartbroken, barren mistress.
Regardless of what they are, each of us have some type of difficult circumstances in life that have, at one time or another, made us feel like less-than-seen mistake-makers. But here in Genesis, Hagar’s difficult, feeling-unseen moment gives us insight into the loving care of Emmanuel, God with us, who sees the unseen and comes to breathe His grace upon us. If there were mistakes to be made, Hagar’s life most likely contains some sort of version of them, but still the eyes of God rested upon her with hope and promise. Precious friend your mistakes don’t bring about some type of deserved banishment or invisibility. Sometimes our mistakes, especially sinful ones, do bring about consequences that we may have to live through. But even in those times, the perfect, all-seeing love of God is available to every one of us. His eyes are able to see beyond our mistakes and flaws. Emmanuel, God with us, is on the hunt for every hungry, hopeless, searching, and seeking heart. He sees beyond our shortcomings, short tempers, misgivings, and mistakes. Even when we are alone in the wilderness of our handmade consequences and results, He comes with the promise of His presence.
This season, no matter the circumstances that surround every one of your days leading up to Christmas and beyond, know today that you are not hidden, invisible, cast out by God, or rejected. You’re not too much, too big-of-a-personality, too loud, too exhausting, to messed up, too talkative, too quiet, or too tiring. You’re perfectly loved just as you are. I’m not saying there won’t be sweet, corrective talks between us and our Savior, but even the correction of God is done with His love and grace. Precious one, you are seen by Emmanuel, God with us, God-Who-sees, and He longs to cup your face into His loving hands and wash you clean with His presence. You are known and loved by the gracious Father who gives promises of goodness and mercy that will follow you all the days of your life as you follow Him. Maybe you’re one who has been taught to think of God as an angry Father ready to strike you down in the moment of any failure or imperfection, but precious friend, that picture couldn’t be any further from the truth. Our God is Hagar’s God. He’s the God who warns us of the depression and desperation that comes from a life lived to our own passion and pleasure, but He’s also the God who comes with the well-trodden way of salvation and blessings fully opened to any who would accept His offer of love.
From feelings of invisibility to mistakes made in the heat of the moment by the pure accidental nature of humanity, the life of Hagar draws our attention to the loving care of God. Whatever this Christmas season holds for you, I pray you would take note of her story and remind yourself often that you are seen by a loving, searching, gracious God who pours out His favor upon us in our moments of need. Hagar’s life declares to us today that Emmanuel’s God-with-us Presence is near to the broken and to the broken-hearted. Today, rest in the truth that God is indeed the God-who-sees you, the God who comes to you, the God who can restore you; He is Emmanuel, God with you. He is the One who is able to raise you above every mistake you make and declares that He has good plans coming for you. He is the God who promises to work all things together for good for those who love and trust Him, so let’s lean into the light of His eyes upon us and let ourselves be drenched today with the love of the gracious God who sees us always.
Emmanuel; with us IS GOD