And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” Exodus 2:25
My pastor-husband often comments about how God seems to take him personally through whichever book of the Bible he is preaching. It’s why he says he will never preach Job! Well, I have now experienced this reality myself.
Last summer I wrote my soon-to-be released teen Bible study, The Gospel-Centered Life in Exodus for Students. Since December I’ve been working through the editing process. The material is obviously very familiar to me, but not until I read it through for the final time before releasing for print did the lessons speak to me. It was like every lesson was new and had me in mind.
God’s word is like that. The reminder I needed now (not last summer when I wrote it) was God hears me, God sees me, and God is acting on my behalf. Not just “me” per se, but my family because of hard seasons some of us all of us, consequently, have been in. But even in seeing God’s deliverance of the Israelites and faithfulness to fulfill his promises, I’m still like the Israelites. I struggle to believe He will be this for me when He is slow to act, or doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all.
But God patiently endures with us, and even gave me the same message again the very next week. (And to think He doesn’t see me!)
This time the message came through the story of Jacob and his wives, Leah and Rachel, as told by a pastor at a conference I’ve just returned from. As with Exodus, this story in Genesis was familiar. (So you know, Leah had given Jacob his heirs, but it was Rachel who he truly loved.) While much could be unpacked from it, what stood out to me were the names of Leah’s first three sons.
The first son was named Reuben because God saw Leah in her affliction.
The second son was named Simeon because God heard that Leah was hated and gave her another son.
The third son was named Levi, which means attach. Leah’s hope after having borne Jacob three sons was that he would attach himself to her.
But Jacob is not where her true hope can be found. Only God is the one who sees her fully, hears her cries and unites himself to her completely. And he does this for us too.
I knew this message was for me. But “Oh Lord, help me with my unbelief.”
When we don’t feel him seeing us, hearing us and attaching himself to us in the midst of trials and suffering it is easy to doubt that He is. So I still found myself sitting there thinking, “I know God’s ways are better than mine so he may not be answering my prayers in the way I want. But, come on God, please give her/him something good.”
I’m still teary over the fact he did, and a little bit in disbelief.
You see, my daughter was just shy of the grade she needed in her finite math class to move on. This class was a prerequisite to statistics and without concurrent enrollment in statistics she wouldn’t be able to take the psychology classes she needs. Therefore, riding on this math grade was her entire next semester.
After the final, she met with the math professor, the department head and even the dean of students hoping for a curve… some grace, some understanding. We were on pins and needles all week.
“Will they have mercy on her?” “Will they take into account her dramatic progress over the last six weeks that makes her look like a completely different student from before and after Spring Break?”
It could’ve gone either way. But based on her “bad luck Becky” schema (though “luck” isn’t even something we believe in), I was bracing myself for things not to pan out as we wanted.
Again my prayer, “Come on God. Give her something good. Show us you see her, and hear her and are with her!”
God saw and He heard! But God is good not because he gave us what we wanted. He is good because even when we throw up our hands at him, he is steadfast in his love to us! He doesn’t hold our sin or emotions or doubts against us. He is faithful and never forgets.
I wish I could say I will trust him better now. But I’ld be foolish to think I’m any different from the Israelites who kept on complaining even after all God did for them in the wilderness.
So, my prayer is, “Help me, Lord, in my unbelief to rest knowing even when the tangible evidence is missing that you see me, hear me and have attached yourself to me.“
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