{"id":14288,"date":"2025-03-18T22:51:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T01:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/?p=14288"},"modified":"2025-03-18T22:51:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T01:51:44","slug":"el-roi-god-that-sees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/2025\/03\/el-roi-god-that-sees\/","title":{"rendered":"El-Roi – God that Sees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes life throws us unexpected challenges. We go down roads we never intended to go down. We were healthy then we were sick. We were married then divorced. We were serving in a church then shunned.<\/div>\n
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There will be times when we face things that leave us with heavy disappointment. All our unanswered prayers look differently than we had originally hoped for. The promises are unfulfilled.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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We can find ourselves lost in the wilderness, alone, scared, and heavy-hearted as we wonder how we got to this place we never desired to be. How did we end up here? This was not my plan. This was not my dream.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This desert land can feel downhearted as we believe the lie that this is the end of our story. It is what it is becomes our go to statement. We can feel empty, hopeless and helpless. Have you ever felt this way?<\/div>\n
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But then, God enters our wilderness. His presence will change everything. Our story can go from a hopeless end to a new beginning in just a moment.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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In Genesis 16, we find Hagar in the wilderness, after being mistreated by Sarah. She is familiar with the sting of rejection and walking down a path she never saw herself on. God, filled with mercy and grace, meets her in her desperation. He lovingly opened Hagar\u2019s eyes, refreshed her soul, and reminded her of His promises for her and her son Ishmael.<\/div>\n
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As much Hagar didn\u2019t want to be in the wilderness, this is the place where she encountered God. Desperate situations often lead our hearts and eyes to be more wide open to seeing and hearing God. Sometimes we need to be out in the middle of nowhere; alone, destitute, and poured out, in order to meet God and to choose Him over everything else.<\/div>\n
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God doesn\u2019t have to compete for our attention which is why we tend to have those incredible experiences with God when we are at our lowest. We draw nearer to Him when we are at the end of ourselves. His voice becomes clearer against the silence of the desert places.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Although God didn\u2019t take Hagar and Ishmael from the wilderness immediately. They were able to lean on God in ways they wouldn\u2019t have been able to if they were. God sustained them, provided safety, and fulfilled the promises He gave to them.<\/div>\n
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In all the ways Hagar felt she was lacking; the wilderness provided an abundance to her from God. She became seen, heard, and connected. In the wilderness Hagar developed her relationship with God where we see her name Him – El Roi, God who sees me!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Oftentimes we find ourselves in the wilderness because we become too distraught to make sense of our situation. We can be parched, and our soul quenched as we try to survive on our own. We forget about the hope there is in God, and we can become blinded by our disappointments and misfortune.<\/div>\n
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Hagar\u2019s outlook was drastically changed when God opened her eyes and provided for her. He lovingly led her heart to see Him by showing her that He saw her.<\/div>\n
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God sees you. He sees your needs and desires of your heart. He is always with you! May your faith in Him and who He is, flourish!<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cSo she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, \u201cYou are a God of seeing,\u201d for she said, \u201cTruly here I have seen him who looks after me.\u201d Genesis 16:13<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sometimes life throws us unexpected challenges. We go down roads we never intended to go down. We were healthy then we were sick. We were married then divorced. We were serving in a church then shunned. There will be times when we face things that leave us with heavy disappointment. All our unanswered prayers look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-elizabeth"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/IMG_5926.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14291,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions\/14291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shreveministries.org\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}