The second name in our study is El Roi. We go from Elohim with more than 2,000 mentions in the Bible to El Roi with only one. It occurs when The Lord appears to Hagar in the desert when she’s fleeing from Sarah.

Hagar named Yahweh, who had been speaking to her, “You Are ElRoi.” She said, “This is the place where I watched the one who watches over me.”   Genesis 16:13, Names of God Translation

The angel of the Lord found Hagar in the wilderness. This “angel of the Lord” is generally accepted as a theophany or Christophany, a visible manifestation of the Father or the preincarnate Christ. So to say “found” is perhaps misleading. God knew where she was all along. He knew why she was there. He knew just how desperate she was. And yet, instead of launching into who He is and how He’s watching out for her, He starts with two questions.

“Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

Yahweh Elohim knew the answers, just like when He called out in the garden, “Where are you?” He knows the answer. He wants us to reflect on the question.

Last year at a writers’ conference, I took a class on the Path of Questioning. Eva Marie Everson adapted it from her book, The Third Path. The subtitle says it all–finding intimacy with God on the path of questioning. Our first assignment was to answer these two questions. These two questions that the God who Sees Me asks. He knows the answers. Do I? And where does He fit in?

Where have you come from?

Where are you going?

This study is inspired by Ann Spangler’s Praying the Names of God in 52 Weeks