Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see (2 Kings 19:16).

The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man (Psalm 11:4).

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).

We’re going to talk about four women. They could be any four women. In fact, they could be any four people. These women have something in common. 

Meet Hagar, the Egytian maidservant of Sarai, wife of Abram. She has been faithfully working for Sarai for a long time now. One day, it’s decided that, according to custom, Sarai will give Hagar to Abram to birth a child, since Sarai is too old. By custom, the child would be considered Abram’s. Lo and behold, Hagar conceives a child. She is so excited! Perhaps she says some unkind things to her mistress Sarai. After all, she has a child and Sarai still doesn’t. We are told that Sarai went to Abram to report the situation, and Abram says, “Sarai, she’s your hadmaiden, do whatever you think is right.” 

So, Sarai “dealt harshly with her, and [Hagar] fled from her” (Genesis 16:6). Hagar is now on the run. She ran away from her mistress, probably headed back to Egypt. She is in distress. The angel of the Lord meets her and promises a blessing upon her. At the angel’s instruction, she returns and submits herself to Sarai. (See Genesis 16:1-14 for the full story.)

Now meet Hannah, the wife of Elkanah. She loves her husband and he loves her, she is sure of it. But Elkanah also has another wife, Peninnah. Peninnah has children by Elkanah but Hannah has no children, for “the Lord had closed her womb.” That was bad enough. In that culture, a wife who couldn’t bear children was seen as defective and one under the Lord’s judgment. But that wasn’t all. We are told that Peninnah often would provoke Hannah because of her childlessness. Hannah is very grieved at this treatment.

After making sacrifice to the Lord, Hannah decides to go to the tabernacle and pray. We are told, “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly” (1 Samuel 1:10). She was crying out to the Lord not only because of her childlessness but also because of her rival’s cruelty toward her. She vowed that if the Lord would only give her a child, she would give that child back to the Lord. And the Lord, in time, remembered Hannah and her prayer. She conceived a son. (See 1 Samuel 1:1-20 for this story.)

Now meet Miriam. That’s not really her name. In fact, we don’t know her name. (But we need to call her something, right?) She is a woman from Samaria. She goes to the well in the heat of the day, not in the early morning like the other women. She is not like them, and she feels their judgment. She lives…. differently. She’s currently living with a man not her husband. In fact, we learn she has had five husbands before. We don’t know her story, but we can feel the pain in her heart. She simply wants someone to love her. Instead, what she has now is the rejection of people and a counterfeit of the love she seeks.

Until she encounters a stranger at Jacob’s well one hot day. He talks to her about water, then living water–and promises to give her some. Then he brings up that subject. This Jewish stranger was not only talking with her but doing so respectfully, even though he “told me everything I ever did!” She ran to tell the other people about this man. (See John 4:1-30 for this story.)

Finally, meet another unidentified woman. We’ll call her Esther. She had such high hopes for her life. But her life has not gone as she hoped or planned. Though married, she finds herself in the arms of another man. She seeks love, but only finds guilt now. This particular morning, the door to the man’s house was kicked open, and she was dragged out of bed. A group of men drug her through the dusty streets of Jerusalem, then basically threw her in the middle of a crowd. She has no idea what’s going on, but it’s a sure bet she is frightened. She listens and finds herself in the middle of a debate.

The Jewish leaders–she recognizes many of them–say that she must be stoned according to the Law. They are directing their questions at another man. A stranger she has never seen before. He seems to ignore them and oddly stoops down and begins writing on the ground. She can’t tell what he is writing, but at least everyone’s eyes are off her and on him now. The leaders persist in asking the man what to do with her, and finally he stands up to reply. “Let those who are without sin be the first to stone her.” The crowd is perplexed. The leaders slowly walk away, until it’s only Esther and the man she now recognizes as the one they call Jesus. He asks her, “Where are the ones who accused you? Is there no one left to condemn you?” She simply says, “No one.” He looks at her a long moment and replies, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” (See John 7:53-8:11 for this story.)

What do these four women have in common? Two Jews and two foreigners. They were all in distress. Judging from their stories, they all asked the same question in their hearts: Does God even see me? Does He know what I am going through? Does He care? Hagar called the Lord “the God who sees.” In fact, she named her son (at the angel’s instruction) Ishmael, which means “God hears.” Hannah named her son Samuel, which means “asked of the Lord.” There’s no doubt that in her crying out she asked the Lord to look on her afflictions (see her). The Samaritan woman no doubt wondered where God was (“Where are we supposed to worship? Where is he?”). Her questions masked her real heartcry: Does God see me? The woman of John 8 no doubt was fearful of God (at least as represented by the Jewish leaders). She stood before their accusing eyes and wondered, “What does God think of me? Does He see and care about me?”

In some religions, God is seen as simply too big to see or worry about individuals. Thus, people are supposed to pray to angels or saints so that their prayer might be heard by God. That, however, is not the God of the Bible. God is the One who sees. He sees all, and He sees to the deepest parts of our soul. What each of these found is that God is attentive. He sees us right where we are. The woman at the well could have easily said, “He told me everything I did, and He’s still here! He still loves me!” Likewise the woman caught in adultery. She looked into the eyes of the one who saw right into her, the one who could fully and finally condemn her. Yet, He didn’t.

We live in a fallen world. We are fallen. Even those of us who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ are still fallen and do fall. We struggle in the midst of life’s trials. And we wonder if God sees us. We can take heart that our God, the Lord, sees us. He knows everything about us, including what we are going through this very moment. He is near the weak and the brokenhearted. Psalm 139 tells us,

O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. . . . Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. . . . Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:1–16)

And Hebrews 4:13 tells us that “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” While this verse often is used to strike fear into people, it is a comfort that our God sees us. He sees everything about us. He knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. Not only does He know us and see us, but also “your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.” God not only sees us and knows us but is with us in the pain and suffering that we go through. That is the greatest truth of all.

Maybe you’re alone in the corner of an empty house
Or maybe you’re the one no one notices in the crowd

He sees you, He’s near you
He knows your face, He knows your pain
He sees you and He loves you
He knows your name, He knows your name (“Name,” Fireflight)