God is Paying Attention

Sometimes when we suffer abuse and oppression in our marriages, in our homes, in our families, we feel like nobody cares, nobody believes us, nobody sees or knows or hears, especially God.  Today we will think more about that.  Is God paying attention or not?

There’s just something about this condition called domestic abuse or violence that makes us feel as if we are invisible, shrunken to the point of nothing.  No value.  No worth.  No voice.  We hide in our homes and nobody even misses us.  When we do go out to church or to holiday get-togethers, isn’t it all about the Big Man?  He gets so much attention with his loud happy singing and charming personality – he’s the life of the party!  Nobody sees his sweet, submissive side-kick standing in his shadow.

Invisible.  And getting smaller by the hour.

I’m thankful that God included the stories of seven women in His Word who probably felt as worthless, valueless and hopeless as you do.  They all endured different very hard circumstances.  Nobody seemed to care much about them due to their condition, their reputation, their habits, their lifestyles.  In fact, six out of the seven are not even named in our Bibles – they are known only as “The Woman Who _____”.  Can you imagine?

And yet, as we will see, the Lord was paying attention to each of them.  He sees, He hears, and He acts in love toward those who are invisible in this life.  Here we go…

The Woman at the Well (John 4)

This woman was notorious in the small town of Sychar in Samaria for having been married five times and now living with a man who she was not married to at all.  Do you ever wonder why she had five husbands and now a live-in?  The Bible doesn’t say that she was a widow.  I wonder how much abuse she experienced in her home over the years?  And now because of her reputation as a multi-divorced woman with a lot of “issues”, she came to the well alone at the hottest part of the day to get water.  Most of the women would have come earlier in the morning and had a nice social experience together.  But this woman avoided awkward community situations and preferred to come alone to the well.

And there on that day was Jesus!  He spoke to her, He asked her for a drink of water, He took the time to listen to her and then offered her Living Water!  He confirmed to her that He is the Messiah that she and her people had been waiting for. Jesus paid attention to this woman who really had nothing to offer Him except her broken heart.

The Woman Who was Bleeding for Twelve Years (Matthew 9, Mark 5, Luke 8)

She’s often referred to as The Woman who had an Issue of Blood.  That’s a serious issue.  And it ostracized her from regular society.  The cultural norms of the day labeled her as “unclean”, to be avoided at all costs – much like a leper of their day.  She had been to doctors for help, but they only took her money and couldn’t help her problem.  Her chronic and embarrassing condition caused her to feel outside of community support, even invisible to most people on the streets that day when Jesus was walking by. 

In a desperate act of faith she moved toward Him, hoping only to touch the fringe of his garment in a last ditch attempt to be healed of her condition.  Because of the crowds and her physical weakness, she practically crawled between the people to get to Jesus.  And then everything got quiet.  It probably even felt like slow motion as she realized that the bleeding had immediately stopped when she touched the hem of his robe.  Jesus knew that healing had gone out from him and He looked for her in the faces of the crowd.  There she was!  Embarrassed to be noticed by Him, she probably would have preferred to just run away at this point, but He was paying attention to her!  He even called her Daughter and encouraged her for having faith in Him.  When Jesus pays attention to us, nothing else matters.

The Syro-Phoenician Woman (Mark 7)

Again, we don’t know this woman’s name, only that she is a caring mother and a Gentile.  She was following Jesus, trying to get His attention to heal her young daughter from a demonic spirit.  I wonder if the disciples were annoyed with her because she was a non-Jewish woman trying to get to Jesus.  Either way, Jesus had time for her.  He tested her faith a little bit and then told her, “go your way, the demon has gone out of your daughter.” When she got home, it was exactly as Jesus said.  He paid attention to her and healed her precious child.

Hagar the Egyptian Slave (Genesis 16)

When Abram and Sarai were struggling to have a child, Sarai decided it must be God’s will for her husband to go sleep with their slave woman, Hagar.  And, of course, she got pregnant and of course, Sarai got jealous about all of that even though it was her original idea.  Sarai dealt harshly with Hagar who fled into the wilderness to get away from this really bizarre rich couple.  The Bible says: “the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.  And He said Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?”

Hagar had been terribly used and abused by Abram and Sarai.  She was an Egyptian woman, even a slave, living in Canaan far from family and friends. Betrayed by her owners and then rejected, she didn’t matter to anyone.  Except to the Lord.  He was paying attention to this whole balagan, a big chaotic mess.  I wonder if He was even shaking His head at the way His children were behaving towards one another.  The Lord comforted Hagar and promised her that the son within her would have many descendents.  He gave her courage to return back home to her owners but first, she gave God a new name:  You-Are-The-God-Who-Sees.  God was paying attention all along.

The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 8)

One morning when Jesus was teaching in the temple, the scribes and Pharisees interrupted the lesson by dragging a woman into the midst of the crowd.  “She’s been caught in the very act of adultery!” they shouted.  “What do You think we should do about her?”

This account always gets my hackles up and I have many questions:

Doesn’t adultery involve two people and where is the man?

Was she possibly an unknowing party to an entrapment scheme, the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus into saying something against the Law?

What was Jesus writing in the dirt?

After He addressed the sinful hearts of the Pharisees and they all dropped their rocks and left the scene, Jesus turned to this poor used and abused woman.  He gave her His full attention.  He did not condemn her.  Probably He looked at her with the most kind, tender eyes, knowing all of her anxious thoughts and troubled life.  “Go,” He said, “and sin no more.”  He had mercy on her. 

The Woman with a Spirit of Infirmity (Luke 13)

For eighteen long years this woman had been oppressed by a spirit who bent her over. She could not straighten out her back.  Day after day, year after year she could only see the ground at her feet.  Imagine the unbearable pain and utter loneliness of that life.  And yet, she had the faith to attend synagogue on that Sabbath when Jesus was there teaching the people. 

And Jesus in His wonderful love stopped everything when He saw her there in the congregation.  She had been looked over, ignored, neglected, marginalized and misunderstood for so long but now Jesus was looking right at her.  Did she have to twist her shoulders and neck to see Him?  He called her over to Himself, in front of everyone, in the middle of the Sabbath and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”  He laid His tender hands on her aching distorted body.  Immediately she was made straight, giving glory to God Most High.  Can you see the joy on her face as she stands tall and looks into the eyes of her Savior and Healer who paid attention to her?

When the religious leaders confronted Jesus with indignation for His Sabbath healing, He called them hypocrites!  “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound – think of it – for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”

Oh what a comfort, oh what a Savior!

The Woman Who Showed Up at the Pharisee Party (Luke 7)

Simon the Pharisee had a little get-together for the guys and invited Jesus to join them.  Jesus gladly went over to Simon’s house and sat down to eat.  They were all gathered around the table enjoying lively, polite conversation when suddenly everything got a little awkward for everyone…except Jesus.  A woman (known by all as a sinner, probably a prostitute) entered the room and without saying a word knelt down behind Jesus and began crying softly, drenching His holy feet with her tears and pouring her alabaster flask of fragrant oil all over his feet.  She washed His feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair.  She kissed His feet and anointed them with the oil. 

The dinner guests were aghast!  Whispers and innuendos started flying around the table:  doesn’t He know who she is, what manner of sinner she is?  If He were really a prophet would He allow this sinful woman to touch Him?  Jesus ignored their hypocritical comments but spoke in her defense.  

This woman, abused and used, invisible and disrespected, socially disreputable and isolated for her sin, was publicly forgiven by the Savior of the world right there at that dinner party.  Rather than condemn her, scream at her, throw her across the room, threaten her with hell’s fury, Jesus quietly said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you.  Go in peace.”

He was paying attention to her the whole time.  Jesus saw how much love she had in her heart for Him.  Her tears falling on His feet were 120% proof of her broken repentant heart.  Jesus saw that life was very hard for her to have to sell her body to make ends meet.  Jesus saw how her soul was deeply wounded.  Jesus saw that she needed another chance at life.  Jesus saw that she needed His peace.

Whatever your heartache, shame, rejection or isolation…

Whatever sin cycles you are stuck in…

Whatever abuse you can’t seem to escape from…

Jesus Christ the Son of God loves you and is paying attention to you right now.  He sees, He hears and He is moved to help you by His great compassion.  If He was paying attention to these women in the Bible, we KNOW He pays attention to us.  You are NOT as invisible as you think you are if God Himself can see you.  You may feel smallish and not valuable, but in the eyes of the Lord, you are the most precious person He knows.  

(Special thanks to YouVersion Bible reading plan “Do You See This Woman?” and Jessica T. for the encouragement.  Also photo credit to lrtrovillion.com)