Week 28 · Day 2: The Names of God
The God Who Sees Me
A name given by a servant with nowhere else to go.
What the labels mean
- Scripture explicitly says
- This states what the biblical text itself says, in the passage being read.
- Direct quotation or allusion
- One part of Scripture quotes or clearly alludes to another. The citing reference is named so you can check it.
- Canonical theme
- A connection across the whole Bible. The passages develop the same theme; one is not quoting the other.
- Interpretive conclusion
- A conclusion drawn from the text. The reasoning is given so you can weigh it against the passage.
- Application
- A step, prayer or question for the reader. Not a claim about what the passage states.
Today’s verse
Loading Genesis 16:13…
Genesis 16:13
Today’s focus
The truth of the day
Hagar is a servant driven into the wilderness by Sarah's harsh treatment, alone and pregnant. It is there, at a spring in the desert, that the angel of the LORD finds her, and it is there that she becomes the only person in Scripture recorded as giving God a name.
El Roi, the God who sees, is not a title given by a prophet or a patriarch. It comes from a woman with no status and no power, who discovers that being overlooked by everyone else did not mean being overlooked by God.
Today’s reminder
Scripture explicitly says- God sees the people others pass by.
- Being unseen by people does not mean being unseen by God.
- A name for God can come from anyone He meets, not only the powerful.
Deeper insight
What the passage says in its own setting
Genesis 16 places Hagar's flight and return between two chapters about the covenant God is making with Abram. The narrator does not let the reader forget her even while the main covenant story continues around her, and the angel of the LORD gives her son a name and a future in verses 10-12 before she names God herself in verse 13.
The well is later called Beer Lahai Roi, the well of the Living One who sees me, according to verse 14, so the place itself becomes a permanent marker of what happened there. A servant's private encounter with God leaves its name on the land.
Christ connection
Where this leads to Jesus
Canonical themeThe Gospels repeatedly show Jesus noticing people others overlooked, such as the woman with a blood disorder in Mark 5:25-34 or blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52. The God who sees Hagar is the same God who stops for the overlooked in the Gospels.
Reflection
ApplicationWhere in your life do you most need to remember that God sees you?
Today’s action
ApplicationName one situation that feels hidden or overlooked and bring it to God in prayer by name today.
Today’s prayer
ApplicationGod who sees, thank You that You found Hagar in the wilderness and that You see me too, in whatever place feels unseen or forgotten. Let me trust that You are near even when no one else notices. Amen.