2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up [my entire life, everything I do];You understand my thought from afar.3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And You are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Psalm 139: 1-3, Amplified Bible
Psalm 139 presents God as El Roi, “The God Who Sees Us.”
In this Psalm, David was doing some deep introspection. He was pouring out all of his feelings - the good, the bad and the ugly before God. He was, “keeping it real.” David didn’t try to hide his feelings, his struggles, his questions, even his hateful feelings toward his enemies from God, because David understood that there was no place he could run or hide from the all seeing eye of the Lord. Interestingly, he took great comfort in Knowing that God sees and knows all.
When our daughter Aris was just learning how to talk she enjoyed playing “peek - a - boo.” Sometimes she would crawl up the stairs to the landing which divided our staircase, run to the window and pull the curtains over her face, peek out with a big grin and say, “I See You!” Playing that game gave her great delight because she enjoyed hiding her face and then peeking out and saying, “I See You!”
While God is not in heaven playing peek - a - boo with us, saying, “I See You,” there are times, when we like Adam and Eve in the garden want to run and hide ourselves, run and cover ourselves, pull, if you will, a curtain over our faces because we don’t want the Lord to look at us. Sometimes we don’t even want to look at ourselves. Sometimes we wrestle with who we are, who we aren’t and who we wish we were. There are others who feel that nobody “sees” them. They feel invisible.
In Ralph Ellison’s Work, The Invisible Man, he discusses one man’s struggle to “see” himself after years of feeling invisible. The character declared…
And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself…
This was grieved that no one cared to know him. He felt that no one ever gave him a second thought. Who he was didn’t matter - not to those who couldn’t see him…not for those who had no desire to see him. They only saw what they wanted him to be - they only saw what they carved out for him to be. Therefore, the true essence of who he was, was invisible. So he spent years of his life trying to be something he was not, living beneath who God had created him to be, trying, as June Cash, the widow of Johnny Cash used to say, “Just tryin to matter.”
So many spend their lives, never learning who God meant them to be, just tryin to matter - walking around, feeling invisible because nobody can “see” them. Some are so buried under the junk of stuff that folks have piled on them over the years that they can’t even see themselves!
But there is one who sees you! God sees us and loves us unconditionally just as we are. While the Lord desires that we become all that we were created to be, His arms are open to receive us just as we are, where we are, however we are. Your only pre-requisite is to say “Yes” to His out stretched hand, receive Jesus as Savior and allow the Lord to cleanse you and make you whole.
You are not invisible! El Roi sees you and loves you. God wants you to be able to see yourself as He sees you - wondrously made, gifted, beautiful, resourceful, meaningful and fit for His use. The Lord wants you to throw off all of the negativity, all of the baggage from the past, all of the mess that weighs you down and buries the real you. God wants to lift you. God wants to free you. God wants to restore you. God wants you to see yourself as He sees you – VALUABLE, BEAUTIFUL, GIFTED, AND READY TO RISE!!!
If you are struggling to know the true you, the real you, the “you” that El Roi sees, ask the Lord who knew you before the foundation of the world to open your eyes to all that God intended you to be and walk into your God appointed destiny!
I am standing in agreement with you today for GREATER!!!
Post a comment or send me an email at Shepastor1@hotmail.com
Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris
www.shepastorchris.org
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