Jehovah El Roi: You are the God who sees me, even in my loneliness

“I MADE HER A LITTLE MORE LONESOME THAN SHE WOULD LIKE TO BE. BECAUSE I WANT HER TO TURN TO ME IN HER LONELINESS. I WANT HER TO DEPEND ON ME. I KNOW HER HEART. IKNOW IF I HAD NOT MADE HER LIKE THIS SHE WOULD GO HER OWN CHOSEN WAY. AND FORGET ME. HER CREATOR.”

I will never fully understand why God made me lonely. It seems with each new season I try to reason why he did. But this quote gives me comfort-in reminding me that it is in my loneliness I cry out and reach out to Christ for comfort and security. My loneliness drives me to the cross. As odd as it may sound, the winter months are usually my loneliest. And that may be why they are my favorite. Because as much as I hate the earthly feeling of loneliness, it gives me this incredible serenity of knowing Christ is everything I need. He is more than enough.

Oddly enough these feelings have come early this year. As I walk across campus, I see the changing colors in the leaves day by day. I see the deep reds crushing the bright greens. From the center to the outside, the color transforms. The leaf is soon to die, soon to be reborn.

Walking today I started to realize I was seeing myself. The red reminds me of my loneliness and inner struggles. Each one of us human, finding ourselves completely and utterly helpless. And yet we have a God who loves us so, a God who came and dwelled among us, dwells within us! The red of my pain quickly shoves out the joys of summer green and consumes me completely. As the colors change, I submit to their work. Knowing that God is killing sin and self in my human flesh. In my desires for anything that is not of him. And I will be reborn into something new, something alive, something beautiful. I only wish it would come faster, but that is the impatience of my flesh. My peace rests I knowing he is with me, dwelling within me.

I recently started doing a fundraiser for Hagar International, which you can read more about in my last post. It is so beautiful how the Lord works. From the small part of my heart he has chosen to give to Hagar…he heals my loneliness, just like those women all over the world Hagar is helping to find healing each day.

“Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” Genesis 16:8-9

The Lord says to me, “Lesley, where have you come from? Where are you going?” I would have to reply reluctantly, I am fleeing, from you. “Return to me, and submit to me,” he says gently. My circumstance is different from Hagar, but my reaction and his command the same. The Lord knows in my loneliness I want to hide from him, but still he asks, “Where are you going?”

So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Genesis 16:13

I call to the Lord, who speaks to me. He is the God who sees me, Jehovah El Roi. Truly I saw him this morning in these words, and today in the leaves, and now in remembrance. Praise you Jehovah El Roi, praise you.