Hagar, when in her desperate plight from the House of Promise, found herself at the end of the proverbial rope. She's a desperate mother seeking shelter and salvation for her son, Abram's firstborn. Ishmael represents Abram's efforts to engineer an answer to a God-promise, to provide logic to a God-pledged miracle.
In her plight from Abram's caravan, Hagar pierces the interminable expanse of her death valley with these words, "El Raah." Hagar declares, "The God who sees." A servant of promise, a woman of works, says of the God of Abraham, "The God who sees." The God who is good to her Master, who has made him promises and proven Himself faithful, is the "God who sees" to her. It would appear that Hagar has an impersonal relationship with Abraham's God.
Years later, Abraham's children would declare of their father's God, He is Jehovah-Raah, the "Lord is my Shepherd." The difference between these two perspectives of God is the difference between personal worship and religious association; true piety and a practiced performance.
The difference between these two views of God illustrates the importance of our positional view of God. 'Position' determines our disposition; our disposition determines 'what' we see, and 'how' we see it.
I know too many people who spend a great deal of energy, time, and resources chasing after a different vantage point, believing the grass to be greener in a different locale, or their possibility of promotion is a matter of getting to a different place. In reality, we are far more productive when we buckle down on ourselves and work on our inner 'disposition!'
Jesus, always dealt with others IN love! But He took a cat-of-nine-tails into the Temple. Wisdom teaches us that when we deal with others, we deal with love and grace, but when we enter into our temple (enter into our own sanctuary of thoughts, will, emotions, plans, agendas, etc...) we must deal with the truth about ourselves (who we really are) and execute anything we find 'unbelieving' in ourselves. Until we see "who" we are, we're likely not to "see" who He is. Until we correctly acknowledge the error of our "viewpoint" we are not likely to discover the "promised" and "purchased" view God has granted us through Jesus Christ our Redeemer Lord.
Until Jesus can become your "the Lord is my Shepherd," it's not likely He'll be anything more to you than a "God who sees."
Wendell Hutchins II