Prayer to the God Who Sees

“So she [Hagar] called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” (Genesis 16:13).

Many women and men in our world experience physical and emotional abuse in places where they should feel safe. Like Hagar, many flee and sometimes find themselves in situations that are equally or more dangerous.  Sadly, sometimes we fail to “see” those who suffer. We fail to protect. We may deny their abuse. We need to be more like the God we worship, the God who sees and who looks after the outcast.

God who sees,

Help us to see. Open our eyes to injustice that enrages you and causes you to reach for your armor, asking why no man or woman has stepped into the breach to fight for your cause. We pray that we will discern deception that seeks to distract us from doing your will. Help us to hear. Open our ears to cries for help that arise from the harassed, the abused, the depressed, the unemployed. Help us to remember. Revive our memories so that we recall our promises to you and one another when we were baptized, when we wed, when we were employed. Remind us each day that we are your ambassadors. May we seek to reconcile rather than repel by our words and our actions. Help us to see the victims so that we may help, the opportunities so that we may serve, the challenges so that we may overcome. You see us as we are. Help us to see as you see, and to be who you want us to be. Thank you for seeing and for caring. In Jesus’ name, Amen.