The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3)
So there’s this gospel artist called John P. Kee who I absolutely love … in terms of his music, I don’t know him, but if he’s anything like his music, I’m sure we’d get on just fine. So at that funny age between borrowing my older sister’s gospel tapes and buying my own a friend gave me Kee’s solo album called Colourblind. The first track on the album is called He’s Watching You. Back in that day I never paid too much attention to the lyrics and loved the singing, music and general feel of the track.
Of course now I’m a bit older and regret not looking after that CD especially with how hard it is to get a copy now. I do remember the lyrics though and they play a good part in the proverb for today.
You may read or hear people talk about privacy. Apparently we have a right to privacy and invasion of it is something taken very seriously. In the same way, however the surveillance culture in Britain is such that some are concerned that it’s virtually a police state with the forces able to monitor your movements through the many cameras keeping things secure. As well as that for those who enjoy their time online there are those people able to find out about the sites you’ve visited and concerns over the safety over the personal information that you leave on it. Wider still we have the ever helpful conspiracy theories about those satellites up there that can view what we’re doing and recording it for the security forces to possibly use against us.
What about my privacy? Comes the cry. This is government gone crazy!
Then someone ‘religious’ comes along and gives the assuring word that God is watching you as well and that can send people over the top. I recall watching a stand-up routine and the comedian making a funny on a God who watches everything you’re doing in all those discreet places of life. Sounds pretty intrusive.
One thing that’s not questioned about this line of thought though, is how self-seeking it is. I agree with the need for privacy in life, but to the extent that you don’t want God to be seeing what you’re doing? Why’s that then? God knows everything about you anyway – He made you, He was involved in the stages before the beginning and has an insight into the whole script of your life anyway. Why would you want to hide from Him? Is it because there are things He shouldn’t be involved in? Is it because of some of the thoughts we have, the deeds we get up to ‘behind closed doors’?
God sees what’s going on and to try and avoid that in the hope of covering something that we don’t want to be exposed says more about not understanding where we come from and whose we are. It’s almost as though we forgot the premise of wisdom – the fear of the LORD. When we remember that and get a glimpse into who He is that exposes those desires of the heart and puts us right in our concerns for ‘privacy’. If all of life is to be lived in the light of who He is and what He means in life it follows that rather than being miffed, disturbed or put out by His eyes on us, it should be something to welcome with joy.
Knowing who He is means that He’s not looking for us to slip to throw down a huge sledgehammer of bad stuff as if to say ‘I told you so’. He’s watching us in terms of looking out for us, eager to give us direction from those discreet issues of life to the ones more in the open. His presence is not something to be terrified by, His surveillance is not for the sake of intimidation … unless the relationship with Him is not how it should be and there’s no desire to change that on our parts.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
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