El-Roi; the God who sees. Something I’ve been learning about God this Summer.

When we feel invisible and it seems that all of our efforts to serve and please God go unnoticed by those we want to be seen by, there is one who sees. God sees. No matter how invisible we might feel, we are never invisible to God. El Roi, means the God who see’s and this is a reminder I really have been needing this summer.

All my life I’ve felt like I have just been invisible to certain people. No matter where I go or what crowd I’m with, I am never the one in the center of the picture, I’m just there, in the background. And each year of my life I’ve had to really fight and wrestle with this strong desire and longing I have had to be that one who is in the center. To be the one everyone wants to hang with. To be noticed and appreciated instead always being invisible.

Without even knowing it, I have been putting so much worth into certain roles people can have in life. Instead of seeing all the roles we have as fitting together and working together for God’s purpose in the body of Christ, I have been looking at all the ways I am not like others and feeling like I will never measure up. But this summer, God has slowly, and few many mistakes, been getting through to me and doing some hard work on my heart.

I spent this entire summer working alongside other Christians but when I look back I realize that I was unable to fully enjoy the fellowship of working with them because in my heart, and in my pride, I was telling myself that their roles was more valuable than mine. I found myself constantly striving and basing my happiness in serving on reaching certain goals instead of being fully focused on serving God in the way He has specifically called me.

Well, long story short, it took an unplanned injury and many days of “forced” rest to awaken me to a new view. Suddenly my life was slowed down by a very bad sprained ankle (which I just found out this week is also a small fracture). I no longer felt like I had constrol in my life and I was unable to strive for the things I thought were so important. I had to choose to rest and take on roles that I deemed as less important simply because it was all I could do. The last few weeks of my summer were filled with days of “forced” rest and I found myself getting back into long mornings in God’s word each day and looking to Him more for help.

And as hard as it was, somehow in the midst of this change, I began to see something. I realized that when I stopped striving I began to understand that each role is important and needed. Just because one role requires more skill and responsibility it doesn’t mean it is more important to the function of the body of Christ. God made each of us to have separate roles and callings and to simply serve Him in the whatever area He’s called us to.

But this is probably the biggest realization I made this Summer – People don’t love me less because I don’t have the skills for these roles nor do the roles that are more in the background have less importance when it comes to serving God.

I was reading a verse in Hebrews today a verse that really cemented in my mind this concept that God has been teaching me;

“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,” Hebrews 6:10-11

In this passage, I saw that God doesn’t overlook any acts of service to Him. God see’s all we do, even when we do things that are more in the background. God is the God who sees! One of my favorite things I find myself constantly saying to myself is that God knows my heart and all the desires of my heart, so I can trust him. This means that, because God is the God who see’s and knows my heart, I can rest in Him and find fulfilment in whatever role He calls me to. If others don’t see or give me the appreciation my heart longs for, God sees and nothing will go overlooked by Him.

He is the God who sees! God sees me and He see’s you!

Maybe this post is mostly me babbling on about my experience in something I’m learning. But I want end it by saying that there is also so much that you can take comfort in when you know that God is a God who sees. Whatever your struggle is, whenever you have days where you just feel invisible and unnoticed. God always sees you and your heart. God loves a heart that serves Him for the pure joy of serving Him and not in serving with hopes of being noticed. It took a hard trial and setback in my summer to get this truth into head. So my urge and prayer is that you won’t have to learn this lesson that hard way like I did.

Resting in the God who sees shouldn’t just encourage and comfort us, it should also spur us on to serve Him well in every role we have and stay faithful to the call He has on our life.