El Roi - The God who sees me!

Jeremiah 32:39-40 ~ I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.

I am going through the Jeremiah: Daring to Hope in an Unstable World by Melissa Spoelstra bible study for the second time. This scripture in Jeremiah 32 is in the last week of the study, however, I don’t remember it from the first time through. It's mostly likely because my focus was different last time. In this part of Jeremiah, God is making a promise that after Israel’s 70 years in captivity, He would bring them back to their land and He would continue to do good for His people. Why do you think God continued to bless Israel? They had turned so far from God that they were literally sacrificing their children to false gods! Why would God not just obliterate them? Why would He not just wipe them off the earth? It's because of Jesus. God’s plan was the unimaginable grace and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His plan was for the lineage of Israel to lead to the ultimate hope of the Messiah. It wasn’t only for the sake of His beloved Israel that He continued to do good for them. It was for the hope of all mankind that kept God from wiping out the whole of Israel.

The promises in this scripture extend to all of us. We may go through difficulties that are usually the consequences of our own sin or rejection of Christ; however, as a child of God, we always have the hope of every promise in scripture. The hope that El Roi, the God who sees me, rejoices in doing good for us. He is like a giddy parent on Christmas morning eagerly waiting for us to open His gifts.

Why do we not revel in these promises? Life tends to wear a hole in the place our hope abides. It can rob us of the joy of knowing that the God who sees us, desperately wants to put His truth in our hearts so we will never depart from Him. He knows how the enemy can destroy our peace, our joy, and our love. He has witnessed how the enemy can ravage a spirit and leave it torn to pieces. That is why He wants to put the fear of Him (reverent awe) in our hearts. Because if we ever truly grasp what having God at our center can do for us, we will never want to leave that place.

If you are sitting in the middle of this ugly, chaotic, mess of a world and wondering, “Is there hope?” The answer is, YES! It takes us admitting He is our only hope. It takes us surrendering to His sovereignty. It takes us allowing Him to be in control. It takes faith in the God that dispersed an entire nation to ensure that His promised Messiah would accomplish the redemptive plan. He did all of that for you. That is the hope that keeps us calm in the midst of all of the ugliness that threatens to overwhelm us. That is our EL ROI, the God who sees us!!