Do you see us Lord?
Do you hear us crying out to you?
Do you see our land ravaged by death and disease? Do you see our night sky lit up by innumerable funeral pyres? Do you see the long lines of sick people waiting outside hospitals?
Do you see people running helter skelter to arrange medicines and equipment for helping their loved ones? Do you see the funerals of men and women of God? Good people, people who faithfully served you over the years, and whose family again turn to you in their grief?
Do you see us Lord?
Even as these questions arose in my heart, I felt the answer in the same heartbeat. He does. He sees us. I remembered all those times when we sang praises of El-Roi, the God who sees.
He is the same God, then and now. The same God who saw Hagar and let her know that He saw her. Twice Hagar was stranded in the desert. The first time she ran away of her accord (Genesis 16), the second time, she was sent away by Abraham in deference to Sarah’s wishes (Genesis 21). Both times when she was helpless and desperate in the desert, God reached out to her and comforted her.
Time and again, the Bible records the truth that ‘God never leaves us nor forsakes us’. We are also assured ‘though we walk through the valley of death, He is with us’. Surely, then the God who walks with us, never leaves us sees all that is happening around us. He sees them as we see them, He hears the news as we hear them.
But then my heart cried out again….why then Lord isn’t anything happening? Why then does the pandemic continue to devastate our land and our people? Why then do young and old continue to suffer? What can we do more? We have prayed and continue to pray, we have rebuked covid, we have declared your will on earth and re-affirmed our faith in the finished work of the cross. We continue to help our countrymen in whichever way we can and now what? How long before we see the tide turn? How long before the curve flattens? How long before we can breathe freely and without a mask?
Lots of questions for which the answers are still unknown. But still, deep down in my heart, I know. I know that God sees us. El Roi sees me. He is still God and He is still good. He hears every prayer, every cry, even the unuttered groanings of our heart. And as it is written in Ephesians 6,’ after you have done everything, to stand.’
Stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around our waist, the truth that Jesus has borne our sickness and our pain on the cross and that by His stripes we are healed. Stand with our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, with the readiness to help our neighbour, not to turn away our faces from need, but as the good Samaritan, help, help beyond what is expected. Stand firm taking up the shield of faith extinguishing all the flaming arrows of the evil one, declaring God’s power and goodness even as everything around us seems to say otherwise. To stand firm wearing the helmet of salvation and bearing the sword of the Spirit, believing in and declaring the word of God. And to stand firm and pray in the Spirit, with the confidence that He sees us and hears us.
And finally, as Jesus instructed us in Mark 11:24-25, to believe that we have received what we have prayed for. To envision walking out of our homes freely again, without fear or a mask. To visualise a world without Covid 19 where we can meet our friends and family again and celebrate life. To visualise ourselves as we testify of God’s goodness in our life in the land of the living and that indeed, true to His name, He sees us.
– Jasmine
