El Roi, The God who sees me

I was browsing through books at Borders, when my eyes caught the title of a book.  It read, "The Woman who Named God".  I wish I bought that book that day, but the title of the book kept coming back to me over and over again.
 
The woman who named God, or the first person to give God a name for that matter, was Hagar.  She was a woman in a crisis who ran away to the desert.  In the desert, God came looking for her, and spoke to the broken, betrayed, pregnant woman who no one really cared about.  The encounter with the Creator of the universe, changed Hagar's life, and in a way, the entire human history.  For the first time in her life, she experienced love, that she is a valuable person, realised that her future is safe, that she and her unborn child will be taken care of.  She gave a name to the God who saw her when no one else did, cared for her when no one else could not be bothered, and carried her out of the bottomless pit she was falling into... she called Him El Roi, which means "You are the God who sees me".  Her words are captured in Genesis 16:13 "You are the God who sees me".  "I have seen the One who sees me".

Psalm 139 says;
O Lord, you have search me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord

Before a word comes to my tongue he knows it COMPLETELY?
He knows my thoughts?
He is familiar with ALL my ways?
AND He still loves ME?

The Lord is speaking to my heart, "Yes, I know everything about you. I know you can’t be faithful. I know you can’t follow me with your strength. I know sometimes you don’t even like to be with me, but be somewhere else… I get you… that is why I come after you. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I AM. I will never, never let you go.

El-Roi comes looking for me every time I fall, every time I fail, every time I can’t be faithful, every time I run away… He comes after me.  And then I feel His love and His presence and I realize what a fool I had been trying to find joy, love, acceptance, recognition when I can find much, much more when I am lost in the heart of God. 

The Match is Fixed

Referring to the inner journey of Jesus during Lent, and His resurrection, Lalith Thaththa (Bro. Lalith Perera) said "the match was fixed and the winner decided".  Little did I know that these words would become an experience for all of us.

Few weeks ago, my eldest son who is crazy about skateboarding fell off his skateboard, hit his knee on the concrete and even though we could not see any external wound, he was in severe pain.  He was still in pain on Sunday when we attended mass, and after that the prayer meeting.  During the worship, my son came to me, moved his injured leg in every possible way and whispered into my ear "no pain".  Just then, we heard words of knowledge coming through the recorded video of the Mabole prayer meeting that we were watching.  The very next word, spoke about a person who had injured his right knee and said the Lord is healing that person.  The most amazing thing is, my son was injured on Friday but the word of knowledge was actually spoken Tuesday of that week - 3 days before he was injured.  Before my son fell and hurt his knee, God had decided to heal him.


This is not just about a healing of an injured knee, God has spoken about each one of us.  When we give Him the ownership of our lives, the words that He has spoken about us begin to manifest in our lives.  He knows we will fall - into sin and into weakness.  Therefore He has spoken the word to restore us even before we fall.  The moment we come to Him and make a decision to belong to Him, the words He has spoken begin to heal us, restore us and lead us to a place that we could never make it on our own. Remember Abraham? When God found Abraham, he was an old man, no children, probably moving from place to place in the desert.  Today we call Abraham the "Father of Many Nations" and "Friend of God".  That is how far God will take all of us, who decide to belong to Him and go where He sends us.


It is time for my son to join the Army for his National Service.  As parents we have been afraid... afraid that he will forget the experience that God gave him.  We have been praying and asking the Lord not to hide His face from our son during the next two years, when he most probably will enter into a different life style.


This morning, the Lord reminded me a promise He gave us the day we decided to serve Him.  The promise is in Isaiah 59:21 "As for me, this is my covenant with them." says the Lord.  "My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever," says the Lord.


God has spoken.  He has spoken about us, about our children and their children.  The words He has spoken has no expiry date.  He says this will happen "from this time on and forever".  Praise the Lord!