The LORD had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering; there was no one to help them. – 2 Kings 14:26

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 20, 2016): 2 Kings 14

Last week, an on-line article from CBS News declared that “[Bernie] Sanders “deeply humiliated” by Dems inability to do this.” The article’s title left the reader guessing. Of course, there was an obvious answer. Bernie Sanders was humiliated that the Dems couldn’t defeat Donald Trump in the recent election in the United States. The answer would have made sense, considering that most polls taken during the Primary indicated that that was something that Bernie would have been able to do. It would seem unlikely that Sanders would have lost control of the Blue Wall in the rust belt.  But that was not the right answer. What humiliated Bernie Sanders was the Democrats inability to speak to white working class people in the United States. Sander’s said on CBS This Morning that ““I come from the white working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party can’t talk to the people where I came from.”

There has been a lot of talk about FBI investigations, racist agendas, and the gender gap following the defeat of Clinton in the election. And there is probably some truth in all of that, but Sanders might also be right. The Democratic Party of the United States lost the election because they could not see the anguish of white working class people, especially in the rust belt of the United States. And because they did not see the pain, they could not speak to it, and they had no answer for it.

One of my favorite names for God is one that is seldom used. It occurs in the Bible only once, although it is hinted at in this passage and a few others. In Genesis 16, Hagar gives God this name, El Roi. She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me” (Genesis 16:13). You are the God who sees me.

We serve a God who sees. He is not ignorant of what is happening in our lives. He sees both the big and the small. He is aware of the ills of the earth. And there is something that is strangely comforting in that.

But there is also an inherent challenge. What God sees, he expects his people to be concerned about. We may not have all of the answers, but that is not an excuse for us to not to be in the conversation. When we see pain, we need to struggle to understand it. Only then is it possible to work towards an answer.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Chronicles 25