Tuesday, July 11, 2017

The "Eye of the All Seeing"

From Stranger Days: Chicago


Does God "see" all that we do?  Can we really get away with anything?  We try, don't we?  In Psalm 139, David talking to God says,

"You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.  Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.  You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, God!  How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand- when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!  They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.  Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?  I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.  Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

What is David trying to hide here?  What problems is he dealing with?  He doesn't want to do what HE wants to do.  He wants to do what GOD wants him to do.  

Cain didn't want to do what God wanted him to do.  When he killed Abel, the Lord asked him, "Where is your brother?"  Cain said he didn't know!  "Am I my brother's keeper?" he responded.  Of course God already knew the truth.  Abel's blood cried out to him from the ground, the Bible says.  God punished Cain, but curiously still protected him at the same time from being killed himself.  It was part of God's plan I guess.  

Jesus constantly demonstrates an intimate knowledge of people, people who didn't yet know him.     When he met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, he already knew everything about her, and her relationships with men.   He already knew that her spirit needed refreshing before he talked with her.  He told her he was the Messiah, and she believed him.  It says she left her water jar to go back to town and tell the people about him.  "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.  Could this be the Messiah?" 

Nobody who approached Jesus had secrets that he didn't already know about.  Nobody who he approached had secrets so bad that he wasn't willing to still approach them.  The people who approached him knew they needed him.  He approached those whom he knew needed him.  Is Jesus calling you?  Do you want to know him?  You can, today, right now.  You can acknowledge his existence,  and accept him in to your heart.  His spirit will indwell you, and you can be a new person.  He can help you with your struggles, today and forever, and he will be your "lifelong counterpart."