Encounters With God: "I Have Now Seen the One Who Sees Me." | Part 2

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

So when my two daughters, I have two daughters, they're now 23 and 25.

But when they were little, they used to love playing hide and seek.

And they would just go hide all in underneath the bed, beneath the curtains, in little crevices.

And they would wait.

They would wait for me to find them.

And I could see them, but you know how you pretend you can't see them.

So I see like their little foot looking out or something, a little bump.

But I pretend I couldn't see them.

And then I'd be like, where are you?

Where are you?

Make this whole production.

And then at some point I would say, I found you.

And then they would burst out.

They would be giggling, laughing, and it would be just such a great time.

And for my daughters, the joy in the game was not in the hiding, it was in being found.

It was knowing that someone was looking for them and that someone wanted to find them.

And I think, what if I didn't look for them?

What if I got busy and I got on a call, I was scrolling, I was, um, back then we didn't have iPhones, so there was no scrolling.

But what if I was cooking dinner, whatever, I got distracted and didn't look for them, or just got tired of looking and said, whatever, then they would be waiting, they would feel insecure, they would feel unseen and devalued.

The good news that I want to share this morning is that our God never stops looking for us.

Though we sometimes hide, and that has been since the beginning of time in Genesis, that God never stops looking for us.

He wants to be found, he is always pursuing us, his goodness is always chasing after us, and he sees us, he knows everything we are going through.

And so we're gonna look at a story in the Old Testament of an encounter of a woman named Hagar, who's often a footnote to Abraham and Sarah's story.

And but she has her own encounter, which is so incredible, and it speaks so much to me, I think, because I am also an immigrant and a foreigner to this country, and there's just some overlaps that I kind of relate to her story, and hopefully you will relate to her as well.

And by the way, I don't know a single person named Hagar.

Like, no one names their kid that.

Lots of Esther, Sarah's, Mary's, no Hagar.

And she's overlooked in our day just as she is in her time.

Um so if you feel a little bit like Hagar and you feel unseen or less than in the eyes of society, workplace, finances, whatever challenge you're dealing with, then this message is really for you.

Or if you're going through a struggle, a financial struggle, or dealing with a mental illness or anxiety, or any number of things.

So life is hard.

And there are so many things that we're carrying.

Um, but the good news is that God sees this and God sees us, and we're gonna know that because the truth of who God is comes through Hagar's story.

So there are three truths about God that I want you to take away this morning.

One is that he's the God who sees, that he's the God who provides, and he's the God who gives us hope for today, and promise for tomorrow.

And so we are introduced to Hagar in Genesis 16, the first book of the Bible, and this is kind of like, you know, previously on, so I'll give you the previously on part.

Um, the quick background of her life.

So Genesis 15, God promises Abram that he's gonna have a son with his wife Sarai.

And Sarai and Abraham, they get their names changed to Abram and Sarah, so I'll probably refer to them that way.

But as the years go on, Abram gets older and older.

Um, he and his wife end up being infertile and they can't have children, which in the ancient culture is extremely shameful and devastating, especially for the woman, since that was considered her only and primary purpose.

So they're getting desperate, they're waiting on God, I know, not relatable at all, right?

And then they go, Oh, I have my own plan, let's try my plan.

So Sarah comes up with a plan, she says to Abraham, hey, use my servant, my slave Hagar, as a surrogate and have a baby through her.

And this custom was actually fairly common in ancient times, where then they would have the child, and then the child would be raised in the master's home as an adopted child.

And so, of course, Hagar, though, no one asks her what she thinks, no say in the matter, she's a slave.

Um, she's property, basically.

And so the plan works.

Hagar gets pregnant, and then the troubles ensue because then Hagar starts feeling like, hey, I have some skin in the game here now, I have some rights.

Um, I'm carrying the master's child, and then she starts, as the Bible tells us, to despise Sarah.

Then Sarah, of course, lots of drama.

She gets jealous, she gets resentful, then she complains to her husband, yada yada, and then Abram is like, oh, you deal with it.

So he avoids.

Um we can do a whole separate marriage thing on that one.

But she does, so then he says, do whatever you want.

So Hagar runs away to the wilderness, and she is scared, desperate, and she's pregnant, um, and she has no plan for her future.

So let's pick it up in the first encounter with the Lord in Genesis 16.

Turn your Bibles, verse 7 to 15.

I'll read it up here, and this is in the New Living Translation.

The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness along the road to Shur.

And the angel said to her, Hagar, Sarah's servant, where have you come from and where are you going?

I'm running away from my mistress, Sarah, she replied.

The angel of the Lord said to her, Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.

And then he added, I will give you more descendants than you can count.

Then the angel also said, You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son.

You are to name him Ishmael, which means God hears.

For the Lord has heard your cry of distress.

Thereafter Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her.

She said, You are the God who sees me.

She also said, Have I seen the one who sees me?

So that well was named Birlah Hairoi, which means the well of the one who sees me.

And it can still be found between Kadesh and Bared.

And so Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael.

So let's notice what pops out from this story, first off, that God is the one who seeks her first.

She runs away, he initiates the conversation.

Hagar becomes the first non-Israelite person in the Bible to have a conversation with the Lord and to have an angel of the Lord come visit her.

When Sarah and Abram talk about Hagar in their narrative, all the way through, they never use her name.

She is just merely noted as a servant or slave, depending on your translation.

She's just not a person to them.

She's a conduit for what they want.

They don't see her.

But God starts out immediately by calling her name.

And then here's the really cool part: Hagar has the honor of being the first person to give God a name.

So she calls him El Roy, which means the God who sees me.

And because she has experienced and encountered the personal Lord who knows her name has seen her, and that encounter gives her the courage to go back into the situation.

And, you know, we often ask God to change our difficult circumstances.

And that's fine.

God tells us, just tells us to bring our cares to Him, to let Him know the things that we're anxious and concerned about.

So that's fine.

But when our circumstances continue to be difficult or unyielding or just it is, you know, illnesses, long-term stuff, like it just is.

Then are we able to follow God and trust that He's gonna meet us in those circumstances?

So nothing about Hagar's life had changed.

When God told her to go back, she's still going back to a yucky situation with a master and mistress that is not liking her or treating her well.

But she goes and she's able to persevere because she knows now that God sees her.

And I just imagine that during her pregnancy, she's thinking about this conversation over and over as she thinks about her son and knowing that, okay, God sees me, God sees me each time, you know, kind of knowing that there's this promise.

So she gives birth to the son, God keeps his promise, she names him Ishmael, which is this is so lovely, which means God hears.

So what a lovely bookend to the God who sees and her son, who's named the God who hears.

And then this experience stays with her.

And then we pick up her story in Genesis 21.

So now, fast forward, 13 years have passed.

Abram and Sarah now have their son Isaac is born.

So now this is the child of the promise, this is the child that's gonna be the beginning of the Israelite nation.

Um, so Abram no longer needs Ishmael because he now has a legitimate heir.

So um Ishmael just becomes a spare that is kind of to be tossed.

And so basically that's what happens.

He uh rejects them, and Hagar and her son are thrown out into the wilderness and out of the household.

She's in the desert, no resources.

Um, and we pick up the story in verse uh in verse 14.

So Abraham got up early next morning, prepared food in a container of water, and strapped them onto Hagar's shoulders.

Then he sent her away with their son, and she wandered aimlessly in the wilderness of Beersheba.

When the water was gone, she put the boy in the shade of a bush.

Then she went and sat down by herself about a hundred yards away.

I don't want to watch the boy die, she said, as she burst into tears.

Then, but God hurt the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, Hagar, what's wrong?

Do not be afraid.

God has hurt the boy crying as he lies there.

Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.

Then God opened Hagar's eyes and she saw a well full of water.

She quickly filled her water container and gave the boy a drink.

And God was with the boy, and he grew up in the wilderness, and he became a skillful archer, and he settled in the wilderness of Paran.

And his mother arranged for him to marry a woman from the land of Egypt.

There's a painting by a famous French painter in 1835, Camille Corot.

This painting is hanging at the Met.

It's a little hard to see on this slide, but um if you go to New York, check it out there.

But at this painter, Corot caught this moment of desperation in Hagar's life.

So you see Hagar, you see the boy limp, you know, practically dead in front of her, and the desperation in her posture.

And wilderness, we think sometimes of like trees and forests, um especially in Northern California, but wilderness in the Middle East would have looked more like this.

It would have been a barren desert.

And so here she is crying out, preparing to die, and just a desperate thing you see in her face.

But what she doesn't see is that depicted by this bird and the angel of the Lord appearing behind her that's coming to her.

And I just love how the motion of it, you can see he's coming to our aid, but she can't see it yet.

Why?

Because she's looking down at her circumstances.

She's caught up with what she can see.

She can't, she's not recognizing God coming to her with his provision and care for her.

And I wonder how often we miss God's interaction in our life, his intervention in our life, because we're too busy worrying and complaining and just feeling sorry for ourselves or just lamenting the legitimately hard stuff that you know we go through here on this side of heaven and earth.

But it's if we can lift our eyes, as she did, um, she meets, this is why she meets God again in the second encounter when he calls out.

So there's a big difference because God sees from a different vantage point.

There's a big difference between how Hagar sees herself, which is how the world has labeled her, and then how God sees her.

So as Hagar sees herself as someone who's a slave.

She has no rights, she's going to die, she's poor, she's powerless, she's a single mother, she's desperate, and there is no hope, right?

Um, and I think part of why Hagar's story spoke to me, and I connected these dots a few years back in a dark time for me, was I realized this is kind of how, in some ways, how I saw myself when I was young.

So I um came to the United States when I was seven years old, and I uh from Korea.

So back then, Korea was not cool.

Like there was no K-pop, K drama, K food, K nothing.

Korea was like unknown.

Um it was recovering from the war still, and there was a better life in the US.

So my parents had immigrated a year before, so I was seven years old, my passport picture.

Um, as and we only knew one word.

My sister and I knew one word in Korean, I mean English, which was hi, that was it.

And we were thrust into school, there is no ESL program at all.

Um there's just this one Korean boy whose job who my parents were so excited because he could translate for me, but what he did instead was he would point, say things in English that I did not understand, and then everyone would laugh.

And this continued routinely as part of my life on the school bus, on the in the classroom.

Um I, in essence, kind of became mute.

In the meantime, um, if you have immigrant parents or if you're immigrants, you know this.

My parents had given up so much when they came over, so they had to start over.

So they had to take menial jobs, they worked nights, I mean, they had they were struggling.

So I couldn't say to them, oh, this is hard for me.

Like you don't want to burden your immigrant parents with anything because their burdens heavy.

So I kind of tried to handle on my own, but I felt often very alone.

Um I felt uh unseen.

And the only place we felt a little comfortable was in our immigrant Korean church, which had other issues, which I'll might share later, but it um the place, at least we had good food at the immigrant church, but we got to, I would hear about this God who loved me and cared about me, but then I thought, why doesn't he change this?

Why is this this so hard?

Why is it so hard for my parents?

Why is this so hard for me?

Um and I thought, why doesn't he fix it?

You know, and though, of course, now I'm fluent in English, um, I've gone through a number of you know careers and whatnot, I still have those seasons, and perhaps you do too, where you wonder, hey, does God see me?

Does he know what I'm going through?

Does he get how hard this is or how unfair it is?

Or, you know, you fill in the blank.

And the answer is yes, he does.

And we know this because we see how God sees Hagar.

So how does God see Hagar?

This is similar to how God sees you.

He values her, he pursues her, he seeks her out, he knows exactly what's going on, and he cares for her, as um Pastor Dave shared a little bit ago.

Holistically, Jesus gives holistically.

God cares about all the dimensions of our lives, physical, emotional, um, spiritual, and all the things.

And he changes her future.

He doesn't just take care of the today, he takes care of her for her forever.

Um and so perhaps you can relate to okay, what is the story that uh the world has said about you?

And is it even true?

Does it match up what God says about you?

And if it doesn't, then dump the other story, because that is not who you are.

Who you are is who God says you are, because that is where God meets you.

So there are three um truths that we get from Hagar's story that I love to um for you to walk away with, right?

So when Hagar encounters God, Elroy, um the first truth is that God who sees you meets you where you are.

Both times God shows up, sees her exactly where she is, and meets her there.

So there's a number of verses, and these slides are gonna have multiple verses that are in your digital notes, so you can look at them through the week if you want to and meditate on that later.

So this will go kind of quick.

So Psalm 139, which we actually had on the slide earlier, reminds us that God knitted our bones in our mother's wombs.

He made us, he knows everything about us, and we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Um, as someone who is growing up in a very patriarchal society, as a Korean person, like I was supposed to be a boy, I know, didn't work out, but my father is the only son of an only son, so goes to show.

My sister got a pass, she's older, but I was supposed to be a boy, and I just remember thinking, Am I a mistake?

Is this a mistake?

Um, but our God's word tells us we are fearfully, wonderfully made exactly as we are, with whatever issues and whatever things going on with us.

Matthew 10, 30 tells us that God even knows the number of hairs on our heads.

And some of us have more, some of us have less.

Um, but he knows to that detail of our life.

And Romans 8, 38, 39, this is absolutely foundational for us, is that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can separate you from the love of God.

So throughout the Bible, we see God meeting people wherever they are in whatever circumstances.

Here are some examples in the Old Testament.

Moses by the burning bush when he's working in the hills, David in a cave when he's hiding from Saul and running for his life.

Esther, of all places, she's met by God in a foreign palace harem, in a harem, and Jonah in the belly of a whale.

And then Jesus also demonstrated how he meets people exactly where they are in some of these instances.

Peter, James, and John.

He meets them while they're fishing, um, in their workplace.

God wants to meet us in our workplaces.

He wants to show up there, he wants to be with you in the work you're doing.

Zacchaeus is in that tree hiding.

Um, Samaritan woman, she's in the well drawing water in noonday because she's ashamed of her life.

And then Lazarus in the grave.

He meets him in the grave and raised him from the dead.

So do you believe that Jesus wants to meet you exactly where you are in your messy, imperfect life?

You know, I was raised in these Korean immigrant churches that had good food, but were a bit legalistic.

So that wasn't a good part of it.

And so I grew up with this warped theology that God was way up here and we were way down here, and that we had to somehow do all these Christian-y things to be worthy of the sacrifice that Christ made.

And it wasn't like explicit, like no one's in our minds we knew it's you're saved by grace, grace alone, we got that.

But it didn't feel like that.

The messages that were sent was that we had to perform in order to earn God's approval.

And because I was wired by temperament as kind of a serious child and a perfectionistic one, I was constantly like striving, trying, trying to earn it.

Um, and it took me years, decades, to heal from those lies, probably until my mid-20s.

Um, I actually went to an Asian American church.

It's probably the last time I've been in a church that actually has Asian Americans, it's so exciting, when I went to law school in Berkeley.

And I remember that I went to that church there, and that was kind of my second conversion of sorts, where I understood, oh my gosh, it is really grace and grace alone.

And it changed everything, the understanding that God is not mad at me.

I think a little bit like my immigrant parents, I felt like they loved me so much, but they're mildly disappointed.

Like it's just there's a little flavor of, is this enough?

Is this ever gonna be enough for the sacrifice?

And I think I kind of carried that and put that on to the Lord, and it just to separate from that lie to say, no, God sees me and wants to meet me, broken me all the ways that I am, and that he's going to provide for that.

Um, so the second truth is that God who sees you provides for you what you need.

So in both encounters, God provides for Hagar, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Um, Abram gives him, gives her a bottle of water, like it's almost comical, but God gives her a well, like the extravagance of a well to sustain her for all of the years that comes.

Um and like the woman at the well that we see in the Gospels with Jesus, this well is a source of physical water, but also spiritual healing for her.

And it promised to walk with her.

So in Matthew 11, 28, Jesus invites everyone who is weary and burdened to come to him, because his burden is light and his yoke is easy.

So, what is the burden that you need to bring before Jesus?

And if your burden feels really heavy, I wonder if you are carrying it with God or trying to carry it by yourself.

And I invite you, he's good at carrying the burden to invite him into to help carry the burden with you.

Philippians 4, 6 and 7 and 19 encourages us to not be anxious about things we can't control, which is probably like 95% of the things in our lives we cannot control, and instead trust that he cares for us and he will supply all our needs in those verses according to his riches and glory.

And then, of course, Psalm 23, 1 through 6, that the Lord is our shepherd and we lack nothing.

Some translations say we have all that we need.

And do you believe that?

Do you believe that God will provide all that we need?

What if it looks different than what you want?

You know, are you good with that?

Is it still good to walk with God even in that?

So when looking back, I you know how when you look back, you can see parts in your life where like, wow, God did provide.

Oh, I just didn't see it, because in the moment we're so consumed by the challenges.

And you look back and you can see those, not the footprints in the sand, because that's kind of hokey, but you can see the times where God showed up and provided.

And so when I look back to myself as that little seven-year-old, shy, quiet, you know, oppressed in many ways, one day, I think it was just a few months in, I think one day there was this little girl in my class, and she had very blonde hair, like blonder than Brita's hair, like really blonde.

And she one day just like went like this to me.

Remember, I couldn't speak much English, right?

So she went like this, and then she patted the chair next to me, next to her, uh, inviting me to sit.

Um her name was Patricia, and she was my first American friend.

And it was a very quiet friendship because again, couldn't communicate.

So we walked over, so mostly walked around the yard, swung next to each other.

Um, but I desperately needed a friend.

And um I don't know what caused her to reach out to the weird, you know, new girl who didn't dress the same, didn't look the same, couldn't talk, couldn't do what she did.

Um, and I'm so grateful for her.

And you know, I think we often, who's the patricia, you know, in our life?

Like, who has God provided for you?

And more importantly, who are you to be a patricia to?

God often does his work through us.

We are part of the provision.

So if God nudges you and says, hey, here's reach out to this person, call them, encourage them, provide for them, say hello.

It can be something super simple.

Like, if you're not the one doing that, then that provision is not being pro given to that person in this in that way.

And you're missing out on the blessing of doing God, will figure out another way to meet that person's needs, no doubt, but you get to miss you miss out on being part of what God's doing in people's lives.

So Be the Patricia.

And otherwise, I will never forget her for that.

And so I think God will provide in that moment.

And I have so dozens.

And you all too, too, of stories of how God had provided.

And the third and final truth is that the God who sees you gives you hope and a future.

After again, after Hagar met with the Lord, both times her circumstances did not change, but she was able to endure it and persevere through it because she had changed.

Because when we meet Jesus, we are not the same.

It's how we walk with God that actually shapes us from the inside out.

And so God helps her to not just survive what her circumstances are, but to thrive in it and to have multiple generations.

And I think when I look at that painting, I think what that speaks to is she thinks her story's over.

She's done.

I mean, physically, it looks like she is done, right?

So she thinks, and I think sometimes we feel like when we're in the dick thick of it, that this isn't going to get better.

And that is a lie from the enemy, because things do change, because we have a God who changes lives.

And so when you feel like you maybe this story's not over, my best days are behind me.

I I coach sometimes, um, I do leisure coaching, and I worked on this one time with um empty nester moms, and they really felt like, okay, now what?

Like, what's my life worth now that I've done with this whole big thing?

And they and there's people like that, people retirees, there's people that are dealing with different challenges, they feel like you know, they get laid off, they're like, What am I worth now?

What my best days are behind.

I'm like, no, no, no.

Our best days are not behind us.

There are still beautiful, sweet days ahead of us, because the power of the cross, the power of the resurrected Christ that we trust and believe in has resurrection power for us that will work in and through us.

And because of that truth, our future is secure on the other side of heaven, but then also right now that God has hope for us.

So the your best days are not done, and that God has more for us.

And there's a line in a song in a Christian that says, if I'm not dead, then he's not done.

Greater things are still to come.

We need to believe that.

We need to believe that when we start.

We need to tell each other that.

This is the best thing about it.

I was a small group's pastor for 17 years.

Best thing about small group is that you tell each other the truth that you know to be true when you don't believe it yourself.

When you're like, okay, I don't quite believe that God is for me.

Okay, but somebody else comes along and says, hey, God is for you.

Remember this, remember that, remember what's happened.

So you speak truth to one another that actually stirs and spurs that on when we have trouble believing for ourselves.

Uh Jeremiah 29, 13, 11 is an example of a promise from God.

You probably all know it.

It's like a refrigerator magnet, it's like an Instagram verse.

Um, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

The really interesting thing about this verse is that it's actually spoken, Jeremiah's prophecy is spoken while Israel's not doing great.

They are in captivity in Babylon.

Their situation is not good.

When they hear this promise, they probably had trouble believing it.

And there's gonna be a long time before rescue is actually going to come.

But God gives this promise.

And so if you are wired a little bit like me, I tend to like to control things.

I like order.

I like my husband and I've been married 30 years, and he probably wouldn't call me a control freak to my face, but I'm sure he's thought it.

I'm sure he's thought it.

Um so it's so fun that like God has such a sense of humor that I'm on my third career because I don't like change.

But God keeps calling me into change because change is where uh where transformation happens, where we go deeper with God is usually when something, there's a transition happening where something familiar and comfortable is being cast aside for something new that God is doing in us.

So I was a lawyer first, I was actually a litigation attorney.

Um, sit that for a while, stayed home with my girls, then I was a pastor for 17 years, which is so unbelievable that that happened, but I did that.

And then a few years ago, I started feeling very restless.

Like I wanted to help people in a different way.

Um, and I wanted to just kind of come alongside people to remind them that like they don't have to be bound by the labels and the narratives that they've grown up with or that they have in their context, but rather they can be free to live out the life that God had for them, for the preferred future that God has for them.

And I want to be part of that journey with people to encourage and empower them and remind them of the goodness that is within them because of who God is and what God is doing in them.

So I started after I was feeling like, okay, I'm wrestling, I need to do something different, then I was kind of chicken.

Because I was like, oh, but I've been at this church for so long.

I love the people, I have this great ministry, people respect me.

I we built this ministry, it's going well.

Why would I leave?

And people are like, why would you leave?

Why would you leave?

And I'm like, but I feel like there's something different, something more.

And so you have to just like a trapeze artist where you hold one bar, you gotta let go to be, go to the other.

And I realized, okay, in that letting go of one thing, taking hold of another, underneath there's a safety net, and that safety net is Jesus.

He's my co-pilot, he's my you know the one piloting me, he's the he's my CEO of my new coaching business.

Like I just, and I've had to dig in more deeply into my time with him, more in living more in his presence.

I think I've grown more in kind of this uh season than I had probably in several years prior because I'm doing something that's a little more risky.

So I wonder if you're in a comfort zone sort of time and God's nudging you towards a transition.

It could be any kind of transition, really, or a different challenge that you may need to think about.

Um, because he wants to do life with you.

He's inviting you to life with him so you get to see and experience and have your own encounter to see how God meets you in that.

Because ultimately, our future and our hope isn't in our circumstances.

It's really in knowing who God is.

And these things about God that he sees you, that he provides, that he gives you hope, isn't like just stuff he does.

This is who he is.

It's like the color of my hair being black.

It'll, this is just who I am.

This is just who God is.

He can't not be a pursuer of you.

He cannot be someone who doesn't provide because this is in his character.

So if in the second part of the verse in Jeremiah 29, 12, it says, then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Um, I will be found by you, declares the Lord.

So if God was playing hide and seek, he would be terrible at the hiding part because he wants to be found.

He will be found.

And if he's not, he's gonna come after you to find you.

Um, because he wants to be with you in the journey in all the parts that's going on.

And so as the man comes back up, I want to invite you to declare together.

We're gonna do a sense of this, the audience participation part.

We're gonna declare this together as the body of Christ, that um we believe this about God, that this is who God is.

So I'm gonna ask you to stand together, and we will say each of these lines and say them like you mean them, and say them only if you do believe them.

And you know what?

It's okay if you say it with the heart of, God, I believe, help my unbelief.

That is so legit, that is so welcomed by the Lord.

He will not despise that at all.

So you feel like I want this to be true, but I'm not quite there yet.

Tell the Lord that.

It's totally okay.

So I'm gonna say each line and then you will repeat together.

Um, the God who sees me meets me where I am.

The God who sees me meets me where I am.

The God who sees me provides what I need.

The God who sees me provides what I need.

And the God who sees me gives me hope and a future.

The God who sees me gives me hope.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for being the God who sees us where we are, who provides for us, and who gives us hope and a future for today and then for forever.

God, thank you for being a pursuer.

Thank you for who you are and your love for us that just never ends.

So, Lord, help us, each of us here, embrace that truth, God, not just with our head, like we know it in our head, but God move it to our heart where we can really marinate in its truth and live out what that means for us.

So, Spirit, work on us, soften us, help us to remember this week as we go about work and life and school and all the things, to remind us this is who you are.

You're a God who sees us, knows us, loves us, and wants to be with us.

And may we do life with you because it is only, that is the only life we want.

So, God meet us always.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

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