There have been many times in my short 48 years that I have cried out to God, thinking LORD where are you, surly if you could see my circumstances YOU would do something about it! Pain always distorts our ability to reason and think clearly...it can be physical, emotional or spiritual pain the effects are similar...it is almost impossible to see anything else but our pain. In his masterful work, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis wrote, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." "[Pain] removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul." We can rest in absolute confidence that our creator does not sit on HIS throne in heaven randomly inflicting pain on his creatures for sport. As Lewis points out HE will use pain to get our attention, HE will use pain to bring us to a place of desperation to where we quit trying to work things out in our own power and throw ourselves at the foot of the Cross.
I was reading in Matt 14 this morning and was reminded that there are many reasons that the children of God will find themselves in the storms of life...there are many reasons that we may be experiencing great pain. In Matthew 14, when Jesus walks on the water the disciples simply do what Jesus commanded them to do and ended up in a storm...in this instance they did nothing wrong, to the contrary they obeyed and ended up in a storm. Just look at the people around you, there are people that are in storms that have done nothing wrong, there are people that are in storms because of the horrible choices of loved ones and there are people that are in storms because of their own horrible choices. Jonah would be a good example of one who ended up in a storm because of his own rebellion and poor choice.
For me the awesome thing to remember is that we are children (provided you are a child of the King) of the KING! We are children of El Roi, the God who sees...we are introduced to El Roi in Genesis 16, the God who sees. Hagar, a young Egyptian woman who is forced to sleep with a really old man have his child and then years latter is sent into the desert to die with her son because Sara is jealous and angry. When you look at the circumstances form her perspective...if something similar happened today we would be outraged and demand justice. But it is though these events, through these circumstances, through this storm...that Hagar and her son meet El Roi...the God who sees.
“Hagar referred to the Lord, who had spoken to her, as ‘the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have seen the One who sees me!’ ” (Gen. 16:13).
It is both comforting and terrifying to fully understand that El Roi sees everything, everything! God sees all our sins..."You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence, Psa 90:8. We rejoice in knowing that HE sees the good things we do and will reward us, Mat. 6:4. We can rest in peace in knowing that, “From His throne He observes all who live on the earth” (Psa. 33:14). “Nothing in all creation can hide from Him. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes” (Heb. 4:13).
As HIS adopted child is is wonderful to know that HE will never leave me or forsake me, it is wonderful to know that regardless of how I got into the storm my Father is an ever present help in time of trouble and HE is El Roi, HE is the God who sees. Let me encourage you to read through Psalm 139, prayerfully thinking on the magnificence of the God who sees and the God who is present with us!
Worship and adore our heavenly Father who is revealed in HIS precious Word as El Roi, the God who sees!
2 Chron 16:9 "For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.
Pursuing HIM though HIS NAMES
love,
m