See

Have you ever seen something without really seeing it? Sometimes we get so distracted we miss the things that are right in front of us.

Just yesterday Ben and I were coming home from church and I was driving, as usual. There’s a spot where you cross over the local highway on a bridge, then you turn left at the light on the other side to get on the highway to go to our home.

As I was coming across the bridge, I could see that the left-turn lane had a green arrow. That means oncoming traffic must have had a red light, right? That’s how these things are supposed to work. The green arrow in my lane means I get to go now while everyone else stops.

I remember coming across the bridge and seeing the green arrow and thinking, “It will never stay green long enough for me to get there. I know it’s going to turn red before I get to it.” I was surprised that it remained green until I was right up to it, ready to turn left, which I started to do. There were cars coming in both lanes toward me, but surely they had a red light and would stop. I was so sure of this, I started my left turn when Ben yelled loudly, “HEY!” and I jammed on the brakes and stopped right there in the middle of things. The white SUV in the oncoming left lane came halfway through the intersection before she also braked hard and stopped in the same middle of things. Ben says she waved at me, probably as a “sorry about that” gesture.

By this time my left-turn light was red, and I had put the car in reverse and backed up to wait for the next green arrow. I asked Ben, unsure, “Did I have a green arrow? I really thought I had a green arrow,” but now I was questioning myself. Did I really see what I thought I saw? Eventually I remembered thinking the green arrow was still there when I got up to it so I was sure I was right.

But the thing that has stuck with me is this: I saw the cars coming toward me but I did not see that the white SUV was not stopping. I was looking right at it, watching it come through the intersection. My eyes saw it, yet my brain did not register that she was not stopping where she should, that she was continuing toward me and was going to hit me. I saw the car but I didn’t see it. In other words, my eyes saw the scene but my brain did not comprehend what was actually happening. My brain was somewhere else.

We go through life with our eyes wide open but not really paying attention, and that is the key: attention, attentiveness, noticing, awareness, mindfulness. Our eyes see what’s there but our minds are on something else entirely.

God never does this. Part of his omniscience is that he sees everything and is perfectly attuned to it all: every situation in every part of the earth with every single person, every second of every day of every year, all the time, without fail. He is never distracted or thinking about something else.

He says in Exodus 3:7,

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt . . .

Did you know the Bible tells us more than once that we will be afflicted? We will have troubles—that’s a guarantee. When we’re in the middle of one, it’s easy to feel alone in it. It’s easy to feel like God is nowhere to be found, even when we are crying out to him. Where is he when we are in such desperate need? Has he left? Abandoned us? Busy working on something else? If I don’t see him does that mean he’s not here?

Emily P. Freeman says in The Next Right Thing podcast #273,

Where did this idea come from? That you can somehow find yourself in a place where God is not? 

Have you ever felt like that? I sure have. But the God who saw the affliction of his people Israel is the same one who sees ours today. The God who heard their cry all those thousands of years ago is the same one who inclines his ear to us in 2023. 

Friend, he still sees. He still hears. He is the same Father today that he was back then. He knows our sorrows. He pities us and reaches out his hand to help. He is still here where I am and there where you are.

He sees—really sees—us. If we want to see him, we need to look, pay attention, be aware, notice. We won’t see God by accident; we need to look past the current distraction and see him on purpose. He is there.