Feeding Lambs S1E10 “God Sees Me”

Feeding Lambs is for our youngest believers and friends in the kingdom. In season one, we are mirroring Feeding Sheep in the sense that we are covering topics that are getting us “back to the basics.”

We will be discussing foundational truths in this season that everyone needs to know and be able to grow and build upon in the times to come. 

“God Sees Me” uses Genesis 16:13 as our text of choice and memory verse for the week. We will discuss how God not only sees us, but He shows up in order that we might see Him. 

We discuss that Hagar is in an unfavorable situation. Many themes are too adult for lambs, but the main gist is that sometimes all of us are put into positions that we didn’t ask to be in, but that God doesn’t abandon us in any place. 

He loves the servant girl just as much as Father Abraham. He was on her side, ready to bless her in spite of the curses she was having to endure. 

Just in the moment when we think all hope is lost, He will show up. The preincarnate Christ met Hagar in the desert that day and she called God by the name of El Roi for the first time in scripture. He wanted her to know she was seen, but most of all, He wanted her to see Him. 

It’s not the miracle that we are seen, but because we are seen we can behold Him. If we can see Him, we can imitate or mirror Him. Once we see His love, we can walk in His example. It’s awesome!

It’s good to know that we are never forgotten, never alone. In the good times and bad. His eye never leaves us! Look for Him, and you will find all the ways He is looking at you. What a beautiful exchange!

The most important place we can connect with our children is through sharing our faith. God at the center of any relationship only allows it to become as strong as it can be. Don’t just build memories of vacations, adventures, sports, or school, build memorials of faith that will last throughout eternity. 

We pray that you will listen with your children and let these “mini podcasts” be a doorway to having important conversations about living out their faith, and what it means. Take time to ask them questions and really engage in their spiritual walk! It’ll transform the whole spiritual dynamic of the family if you will.

Please feel free to let your children know that they can reach out—with help from their parents of course—with any questions or topics that they would like to see covered, or they can send in recordings of them doing their weekly memory verses! 

We want them to know that this podcast is just as much for them as it is for the teens/adults. Can’t wait to see how they grow from here!

God bless, and thank you for the opportunity to speak into their lives. What an honor it is!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Good morning, my little lambs. It is so good to hear from you today and to be with you. I hope this message finds you well. We are going to be in episode 10 of season one of our podcast, and we are going to be in our little lambs edition. And today we're going to be talking about God sees me. And before we dive in, we're going to go ahead with our memory verse. And it's a little different today. As I was researching our memory verse, I um I usually quote it out of the NASB or the King James version of the Bible. But I really loved how the message Bible says it. And so I would like for us to learn the memory verse from the message version of the Bible. And it's Genesis 16 and 13. And I'm going to say it and then we'll do it together. And then we'll dive into what we're going to talk about today, okay? So Genesis 16, 13 says, She answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her. You're the God who sees me. Yes, he saw me, and then I saw him. Okay? So let's do it together. All right, here we go. She answered God by name. Praying to the God who spoke to her. You're the God who sees me. Yes, he saw me. And then I saw him. Genesis 16, 13. All right. So today our scripture comes from Genesis 16 and 13, and it is part of the story of Abraham and Sarah and the handmaiden of Sarah named Hagar. And the Lord promised that Abraham would have a child, that he would be the father of many nations, and that he would have a child with his um wife Sarah. And then some things happened, and some very adult situations were going on, and he wound up having a baby by Hagar and having a baby by Sarah. But that's not what I want to talk to you about today. I just want you to know where that's coming from. But basically, when it all boils down to it, what happened was is that Hagar found herself in a situation and she didn't know what to do, and she was kind of an innocent bystander in everything, and she wasn't being treated very nicely. I don't know. Have you ever been there where people just didn't treat you really nicely and you don't know why, and you don't know what was going on, and you don't know what you did to deserve it? Maybe somebody woke up and they just were having a bad day and you caught the brunt end of it. Well, that's kind of where Hagar was, just a very much more adult y version of that. But she was having a super bad day, and she even got kicked out of her house, and she ran away into the middle of the desert, and she had to take her child with her, and they were running and running and running, and they were so thirsty and they were so hot, and they stopped by a well. And the Bible says that the angel of the Lord showed up, and when you see the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, it is a representation of Jesus Christ before he actually came in physical form. Um they it's a very big word that people say it's the pre-incarnate Christ, and you may not remember that, but you will be smarter than a fifth grader and you will know it. Um but the angel of the Lord is how Jesus showed up before Jesus was actually born by Mary and grew up and was raised by Joseph and did all of the things. So in the Old Testament, Jesus was even present then, and he showed up and he spoke to her and he told her that she could go home and that he was gonna take care of her and that he was gonna bless her child too, and that her child would grow and he would become a great nation, and all of these encouraging things because that's what God does for us. He shows up in every situation, the good days, but even on the bad days, and the days where we think that nothing is working out and everybody can't stand us, and we might as well just go eat worms. That used to be a that used to be a an old saying back whenever I was a kid. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me. I might as well go eat worms. Um, just in case you didn't understand the reference, because Miss Cody is getting a little old. But anyway, she was having a super bad day, going through some things, and it wasn't even her fault. She didn't ask for it, she didn't ask to be there, she didn't ask to have any of it happen to her. Really, it just kind of did. Life just be happening to all of us, whether we want it to or not. And so the Lord sent encouragement, and after he sent all of this encouragement, she was so amazed that this God of Abraham would pay attention to a servant girl like her. And she said, You are the God who sees me. She actually gave God a name and she called him El Roy in Hebrew, E-L space, capital R O I, El Roy, and she said, You are the God who sees me. Because why would God pay attention to a slave? Why would God pay attention to a little servant girl who didn't ask to be where she was? But somehow God didn't just love Abraham, he didn't just love Sarah, and he didn't just love Isaac, but he also loved Hagar and He shows up for us. He showed up for her, and he will show up for me, and he will show up for you in every place that we're at. And when we feel like the whole world is against us, and we feel like we're all alone and that nothing is ever gonna work out right, God shows up because God sees us. God sees me. And she said, You are the God who sees me. And then she said this that was so profound and so beautiful. She said, Yes, he saw me, but then I saw him. The Lord shows up in our situations and and we get so excited because God sees us and he cares about us and he loves us and all of these things. But it's so phenomenal that God would show up for her and that she would be able to see him too. Because that's the point. God's not just showing up to prove that he sees us, because he does, and he will, he wants us to know that he sees us, but he also in turn wants to be seen. God wants you to pay attention when he shows up on your behalf, but he also wants you to see him. Because if we could ever catch a glimpse of him, if we could ever catch how much he loves and see his love in action, um, when we can see something, we can imitate it. And um, like if you can watch your teacher in the classroom do a problem on the board, if you can see it, sometimes you can turn around and you can do it. And when I say that we imitate God, I don't mean that we try to pretend that we're God or we try to be God instead of God. I just mean that when we see his love, we know what it looks like. And so then we know how to love others. When we see him show up for us, then we know how to show up for other people. It's easier for us to be his hands and his feet. She said, Yes, I he saw me, and then I saw him. And so as you go about your day today, I want you to pay attention to when God is showing up for you and the moments that you know, I know God saw me today. And then not just that he saw you, but did you see him? Did you see him? And you are are you gonna see him like you like you would see me, or like you would see your parents, or like you would see your teacher? Probably not. You're probably not gonna see a big figure come down and from the sky and say, I am God. But you will see him moving, you will see the results of him being around and him being for you. And um, so pay attention to those things because not only does God see you, but he wants you to see him. So let's read that memory verse one more time. Genesis 16, 13. She answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her. You're the God who sees me. Yes, he saw me, and then I saw him. I hope you have a wonderful day and a wonderful rest of your weekend, and we will see you next week for our episode called God Corrects Me.

unknown 9:59

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 10:00

And I can't wait to be with you. I hope that you have the best time. I love you, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.