I have been thinking and praying all day about what I could share about the name El Roi and how God sees us. Today has been one of those days where I just didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t sleep well last night, and honestly, I just wanted to sit and watch Hallmark and call it a day.
But as I was reading this evening and praying for guidance from God, I was reminded of an unnamed woman in scripture. In John 8, we are told the story of a woman who was caught in adultery. It is believed that this was actually a trap that the Pharisees had set up in order not to condemn the woman but ultimately trap Jesus.
They drag the woman out and make their claims before Jesus and ask him what they should do. Jesus simply bent down and started writing in the sand. When they persisted in their questioning and demanded that Jesus condemn the woman, Jesus stood up and said, “The person who is sinless should cast the first stone.”
I often wonder if Jesus was writing their sins in the sand for them to see.
One by one, they left without casting the first stone against the woman.
When they all left, Jesus asked the woman, “Where are your accusers?”
“They left,” she said.
Then the one who WAS sinless said, “I don’t condemn you either. Go and sin no more!”
If ever there was a moment where someone was seen, it was this one. She was caught in the act. Perhaps she was naked or barely clothed. Displayed for all to see. She was seen by her peers in an accusatory way. However, by the one who truly SAW her, the woman she is, not the sin she was caught in, he did not look on her with condemnation, but with grace, love, and forgiveness.
Be comforted in knowing that when God sees our inner thoughts, our hidden sins, and the dark places that we would rather Him not see, He doesn’t look at us with judgment. He looks at us with love. He grants us forgiveness through His son.
Rest in knowing that the one who sees us and knows us loves us just the way we are.
Today, I am going to jump forward a little to Abraham and Sarah’s grandson. Isaac had a set of twins, Jacob and Esau. When Jacob went to find a wife, he fell in love with Rachel. But Rachel had an older sister, and when it was time to marry her, her father brought Leah, the older sister, to the marriage tent, and Jacob woke up the next morning realizing that he had Leah, not Rachel. It’s an interesting story in Genesis 28-29.
Leah was described as not being that attractive. Scripture says her eyes had no sparkle or were weak. So I guess that would be today’s equivalent of “she has a great personality”!
She was not sought after, pursued, or even “wanted” by men, unlike Rachel, who was beautiful in figure and features. But their father said it was their custom for the older sister to marry before the younger. (I feel like this was his way of getting Leah married off so she would have someone to take care of her.)
I imagine Leah’s self-esteem is pretty low. And as someone who has struggled with that her whole life, I think I have a good idea of what was going through her head.
Because Jacob wanted Rachel, Rachel was loved. Leah was not. Which brings me to what I wanted to share today. Genesis 29:31 says, “When the LORD SAW that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive.”
Here is El Roi. He SAW her. We are about to follow Leah’s journey of realization through what she names her four sons.
Reuben – who sees the son or “seen” vs. 32 “The LORD has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me.”
Simeon – that hears obeys, or has heard vs. 33 “The LORD heard that I was unloved and has given me another son
Levi – who is held and associated/attached vs. 34 “Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him three sons!”
Judah – the praise of the LORD vs. 35 “Now I will praise the LORD!”
If we look at the meanings of the names, we see that Leah moves from being seen, heard, and held, to then, praise. Her feelings move from looking for the attention of a man to praising the One who saw her to begin with.
Once we stop seeking the attention and acceptance of others to realizing that we already have One who SEES us and loves us, our attitude moves from striving to resting, from longing to gratitude, and from pain to praise.
Leah didn’t suddenly become loved by Jacob. Her circumstances didn’t immediately change. But she changed. By the time Judah is born, her focus shifts. She no longer names her son based on what she hopes a man will finally give her. Instead, she names him out of what God has already done.
“Now I will praise the LORD.”
There is freedom in that moment. Freedom from needing to be chosen. Freedom from proving worth. Freedom from tying our value to how others treat us. Leah teaches us that being seen by God is enough. El Roi was never waiting for her to become more desirable; He saw her exactly where she was, in her loneliness and rejection, and He met her there.
And maybe that’s the invitation for us today: to stop naming our lives after what we lack and start naming them after who God is. Because when we truly grasp that we are seen, heard, and known by Him, praise becomes our natural response.
Yesterday, I spoke about Sarai and how she may have been feeling during this whole ordeal. Today I want to turn back to Hagar. After Hagar ran away, we see that the Messenger of Yahweh, the angel of the LORD, appeared to her.
I want to pause and draw your attention to something. This isn’t just any ol’ angel. This is Jesus before birth. This is the Son of God appearing to Hagar.
How do we know this? Look at Genesis 16:10, he says, “I will give you many descendants.” “I WILL.” No ordinary messenger could make that promise because any ordinary angel would have known nor made a promise of what God can do. This is Jesus.
Back to Hagar. The angel of the LORD found her sitting beside a spring of water. Hagar stopped running. Maybe it was to rest, maybe it was to question her choices, perhaps she was struggling with her decision to run, or maybe she was considering the actions that got her to this point. Nevertheless, she stopped.
This is where Jesus found her.
I haven’t told many people this because, honestly, I’m still trying to make sense of it. Right after the first of the year, I awoke one morning with a voice in my head telling me that “your word for the year is ‘BE.'” I obviously had not had my coffee; I wasn’t even out of bed yet, so I shook my head and told myself that it made no sense and proceeded to respond to the middle-aged urgency of bladder control.
The voice said it again. “Your word for the year is ‘BE’!”
Now I am truly thinking I am losing my mind because it doesn’t make sense. I tell myself to go get coffee, and then maybe I might know what is going on.
But the voice….
Louder this time, “YOUR WORD FOR THE YEAR IS BE!”
(Yes, I understand the insanity of all this, but here we are.)
I do believe it was God. He was telling me to focus on this ‘BE’. Now I haven’t had a “word for the year” since before SarahBeth was born. I thought about it, but kids, life’s little blessings of distraction, have kept me from choosing a word. Instead, I have focused on surviving the days.
At this point, I am questioning the voice. Be? Be what? It doesn’t make sense. “Be” is a verb. I feel like it needs a follow-up word to tell me what to “be.”
Later, I relay the story to Braxton, and he questions the way I questioned. Then he said, Maybe that is what God wants you to do. Spend the year finding out how to “be” and what God is trying to tell you.
I tell you this to reflect back on Hagar. She was “being” still. She had stopped running and was resting. She was taking a moment to “be” accessible to God.
Are there areas of your life that you are running from God that you are trying to hide from him? El Roi sees all of you, so you know there is no sense in trying to hide them from him.
Maybe you think that if you stay busy enough, you will be good enough to be seen. Maybe you struggle with past circumstances that make you question your worth. (I know I do.)
My challenge today is to take a moment, a breath, to “be” in the presence of God. Lock the door to the bathroom so the children can’t come in (even if they stand at the door and scream and kick—that’s just proof of life), or bundle up and step into Elohim’s creation, take a deep breath, lift your head to El Roi, and just “be” seen for a moment.
Lay your heart out before him and let him in. Uncover the dark areas and know that He sees you just the way you are, and He adores you.
El Roi is a name that I resonate with, as I have often felt unseen in different times and areas in my life. To know that God sees me has given me strength in times when life was just tough. As I was reading back over the story today, I saw Sarai a little differently.
I saw a woman who was feeling unseen by God. A woman who knew the promise that God had made to Abram. A promise that gave her hope. A promise that, as women, we may have felt when the timing didn’t go our way.
She was promised she would have a child, and here she is, still barren. She was impatient and felt like God had forgotten her.
So she did what we all do when we are tired of waiting on someone else to do what they are supposed to: we took matters into our own hands. And unlike us, when we took the trash out because “we have asked, POLITELY, THREE TIMES, and it still hasn’t been done,” so we just do it ourselves….. While we have a clean trash bag ready to collect the next mess, Sarai made a massive mess that she now has to deal with.
I can only imagine the heartache that Sarai felt when Hagar became pregnant. I am sure the attitude of Hagar changed, but I am also positive the perception of Sarai changed, and how she viewed Hagar. Hagar’s disrespect was only amplified by Sarai’s feelings of being “forgotten” by God.
When have you had a Sarai moment? When have you taken matters into your own hands and refused to be patient with God’s timing? How did that work out for you? Did you have an empty trash can, or did you have a new mess to clean up?
I pray you know that El Roi sees you. He sees you waiting, and praying, and even begging to be seen. He hears you calling on His promises, and He knows the inner corners of your heart where you are hiding.
Last week, we started our study learning about Elohim. I also challenged you to find out the meaning of your name and find a verse that ties to the characteristic of your name.
At first, I jumped on John 3:16, but yesterday we were at the celebration of life service for a very special man and influence in my life. At the end of the service, they played a recording of him when he had given a message on 1 Corinthians 13. I heard the voice of a man that I admired and lived this verse well read out, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice in injustice but rejoices whenever truth wins. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
This challenged me as my name, Amy, means “love” or “beloved.” I found myself questioning whether I do those things well.
Genesis 1:27 says that we are made in His image; He is our creator. Since God made us in his image, he has instilled in us creative power. What are your creative gifts?
I shared a link to find out what your spiritual gifts are.
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 says:
“A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person, the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another, the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.”
What are your gifts? Were you surprised by them? Do they challenge you?
My gifts are serving, teaching, and mercy giving. “Acts of service” is my love language, so I wasn’t too surprised by that one. Mercy giving also wasn’t a surprise to me. Teaching, on the other hand, was a bit of a surprise. This one is a challenge to me. Obviously, I want to make sure everything I am teaching you all is truth and I want to inspire and encourage you all. But teaching is not my strength, at least not in my eyes.
What do you think it means to be created in the image of God?
Did you use the name of Elohim in your prayers this week? If so, how did it feel? Did you feel a stronger connection to God?
This week, we are studying the name El Roi. (Raw-EE) El Roi is the only name given to God by a woman. It appears in Genesis 16 in the story of Abram, Sarai, and Hagar. In this story, we see where Sarai gets desperate to have a child. She is barren at this point, and she knows the promise that God made to Abram, that he will be the father of many nations. Since she hasn’t been able to get pregnant, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
Hagar was an Egyptian maidservant. The assumption is that Hagar was one of the servants that Pharaoh gave to Abram in chapter 12. Her name, Hagar, is a Hebrew name that means “stranger” or “sojourner.” So it is probable that Abram or Sarai gave her the name, or it came from someone in his household.
The custom of the time was that if a woman could not get pregnant, she would offer her maidservant to her husband to sleep with. A servant was considered property, a possession that the wife could use when she wanted, how she wanted. And the fruits of the maid’s labor were considered those of the wife. So any child that Hagar had would belong to Sarai.
Now, after Hagar became pregnant, she started treating Sarai badly. Or perhaps Abram looked at her differently; we really aren’t sure. What we know is that Sarai was no longer happy with the arrangement that she instigated. So Sarai mistreated Hagar so badly that Hagar ran away.
While in the wilderness, Hagar was confronted by the Angel of the Lord. (16:7) He says, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from and where are you going?”
The language used here is important to note: “Hagar, Sarai’s servant,” as this shows that he knows who she is and to whom she belongs, that she was the “property” of another.
The angel listened to her and told her that she was with child and that she needed to go back to Abram and Sarai. He also told her that she would be given many descendants. She was to name this son Ishmael, which means “God hears”, Yish-“he heard,” and El, “God”—because God has heard her affliction and her cries of distress.
At this point, Hagar names Yahweh, “You are El Roi” (Raw-EE), “for this is the place where I watched the one who watches over me.”
Another translation says, “You are the God who sees me.”
This is why the well is named Beer Lahai Roi (Raw-EE) (Well of the Living One Who Watches Over Me).
As a woman, there have been times in my life when I have felt overlooked or unseen, so the significance of this name is not lost on me. This is why it is one of my favorite names of God. As much as I love to be a fly on the wall or work in the background, it is nice to be noticed and appreciated, especially by the ones you love.
As we go into this week, learning about the one who watches over us, I want you to think about
Like Hagar, is there a time in your life when you have felt “unseen”?
El Roi (Raw-EE) doesn’t just see the physical us, but also our thoughts, emotions, and inner self. What part of you do you need El Roi to see right now?
How does it make you feel knowing that God sees you? The past, present, and future you.
As we walk into this week, I hope you bask in the light of knowing that God sees you.
This week we have spent time learning about Elohim. The first name of God used in scripture in the opening line of Genesis.
As we end this first week, I want to thank all those who have commented and participated throughout the week. I know my ramblings aren’t always deep or prophetic, but I want you to know that I am on this journey with you. Please please please comment and post your ramblings as well, it’s how we will grow and learn together.
I leave you this week with four passages to read and then share how God is revealing himself to you. What characteristics of God or what are his promises here?
I hope you have had the chance to take the quiz and discover what your spiritual gifts are and reflect on them.
We have spent time this week studying Elohim and how we are made in his image. In Genesis 3, we see the story unfolding of how sin entered the world. The serpent tempts Eve, telling her she will be like God, knowing good and evil. She fell for it, gave it to Adam, and then we were all cursed with cramps, hard labor (both of the earth and birthing babies), and death.
(To this point, death had not entered the picture. Have you thought about that? Death wasn’t even on the table until they ate the fruit.)
What really stuck out to me, though, is in verse 8,
“In the cool of the evening, the man and his wife heard Yahweh Elohim WALKING around the garden. So they hid from Yahweh Elhohim.”
He was walking around the garden, not hidden from them, not unapproachable, not unattainable. HE WAS RIGHT THERE!
He addressed the sin, made them clothes, and then kicked them out lest they eat of the tree of eternal life. After that, they had two boys, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel because Abel’s sacrifice was accepted, and his wasn’t. (Talk about a temper tantrum!)
Then, in chapter 5, it begins with a written account of Adam’s descendants. (Don’t yawn yet; it gets interesting.)
Vs. 1: “When Elohim created humans, he made them in the likeness of Elohim.”
Vs. 3. “When Adam was 130 years old, he became the father of a son IN HIS OWN LIKENESS, IN HIS OWN IMAGE. He named him Seth.”
So if Adam was made in the image of God, and Seth in the image of Adam……I’ll let you draw your own conclusions here.
But about 7 generations later, we see where Methuselah (the longest-living person in the Bible) had a son named Enoch. What’s so special about Enoch? Scripture says this in verse 22. Enoch WALKED with Elohim for 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived a total of 365 years. vs. 24 Enoch WALKED with Elohim, then he was gone because Elohim took him.
Can you imagine? “Hey y’all, I’m going for a walk; don’t wait up!” Then you’re gone. Because you walked with God.
I am honing in on that today. How can I be more like God now that I am walking with him daily?
In one of my devotional books on the names of God, the author comments that we are like God in three ways. The mind of God, the character of God, and the fellowship of God.
In the mind of God, we are alike in that we have emotions. While God created all that was on the earth, our intellect is higher than that of the animals. We have the ability to feel emotion, to respond to love, to His love.
We connect to the character of God because he is holy and created us to be holy. Adam and Eve physically walked with God in the garden; the entrance of sin into the world took that ability away. However, we are able to walk with God through the Holy Spirit.
The fellowship of God exists with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is love, desires love, and longs for a relationship with us. We are made by him and for him. When God takes up residence in our hearts, he fills all the emptiness with his presence.
We have already read that God has made us in His image and he has imparted spiritual gifts upon us.
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 says:
“A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person, the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another, the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.”
Each one of us is different and given a unique gift from our creator, Elohim.
So my challenge today is to discover what your spiritual gifts are. I am sharing the link to a free test. Come back and share what you learned about yourself!
I had a moment with Elohim this morning as I was sucking wind (walking my dog) and taking in His creation. I was in awe of His creation, of His beauty, and of His handiwork.
I got a late start this morning, so my Bible study time was moved until after I got home. I have a daily worship devotional that I get that has a song and a short devotional thought. This morning’s scriptures are just too good not to share.
We are focusing on Elohim this week. One of my favorite verses is Genesis 1:27, “So Elohim created humans in HIS IMAGE. In the IMAGE of Elohim he created them.” This verse makes me stop and think about how I am living into the image of God. If others are looking at me, are they seeing God?
In Psalm 8, David writes, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with GLORY and HONOR.”
Do you see that? WE are crowned with GLORY! Have you thought about that? I know I haven’t.
We are his workmanship. We are his.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit, makes us more and more LIKE HIM as we are CHANGED into his glorious image.”
As we are getting to know him, we are changing into His image to be more like him. How wonderful it would be if when others looked at us, they didn’t see “Amy,” but they saw God.
What if I lived into the characteristic of my name, “love,” so that others knew that when they came to me, they would be loved.
I wanted to share a connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament this morning that I found in my study this morning.
Colossians 1:15-17 (NLT)
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through him God (Elohim) created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see- such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.”
Paul in his letter to the church at Colosse gives us an insight into God, our Elohim. He reveals that God was. He was before creation ever came to be. He was the beginning and through him all things were made. And they were made FOR him and He is the one that holds it all together.
Knowing that I am a part of His creation and He made me FOR him, how can I glorify him today?
