When life is hard, a deep sense of aloneness can add to the weight of the suffering we already bear. The relational nature of God’s design for humans, as communicated in Jesus’ summary of the commandments (Matt. 22:38-40), means that it’s hardwired into us that we would long for the kind of relationships in which we are known—seen. We were created for relationship. This is one of the ways we image our Creator. He exists in relationship within the Trinity and created man and woman to be relational beings as the pinnacle of His creative work.

Over and over again, in the grand narrative of the Bible, God reveals Himself as the God who sees us personally and intimately, but the first time He reassures a struggler with this truth, she uses a new name for Him that seals this attribute as an unchangeable part of our understanding of God: El Roi. Through Hagar’s story of pain and desperation, found in Genesis 16, God reveals Himself to be One who knows us intimately, seeing our sorrows and struggles and caring about the specific details of our lives in ways that move Him.