I Know You Are Watching Series

“I can’t let you out of my sight for one minute.” How many

parents here have ever said that? “I can’t let you out of my

sight for one minute.” How many have said it at least a

thousand times? You said it to a small child, bent on doing

something that would hurt. You said it to an older child,

dawdling around the TV set. You said it to a teenager, on

the phone again instead of doing homework. You maybe

even said it to your spouse, who, like somebody I know very

well, gets trapped at his computer instead of bringing up the

package of frozen meat that was requested an hour ago! “I

can’t let you out of my sight for one minute.”

Are you tired of Olivia stories yet? You’d better not be. My

granddaughter is only thirteen months old, and will have time

to produce lots more stories! Margaret went to the kitchen,

just for a minute, and when she came back out to the living

room, Olivia had crawled up about six steps toward the

second floor of the house. She is not supposed to do that,

but it’s hard to tell a child that young what she cannot do. So

up the steps she went, as soon as her grandmother’s eyes

were not around to see.

Now that she can figure out how to crawl up, but not how to

get back down, it’s likely she would fall. So what was

Margaret to do? Several possibilities:

First, Margaret could have decided to demonstrate the

dangers in a very definite way. She could have reached up

and pulled that baby off the step, making her fall down and

feel the pain. That sounds cruel, but let’s admit that is a

possibility. Sort of like the Navy method of teaching people

how to swim -- throw them in and let them learn. Margaret’s

first option was to cause the very thing she feared might

happen, falling down.

Second, Margaret could have decided to berate the little tyke

in no uncertain terms. “You disobedient little brat, I am going

to paddle you so hard you’ll never climb steps again. You

miserable little scamp, you’ll pay for this.” If you think that’s

far-fetched, I have to tell you I hear far worse language in

grocery aisles, where mothers deal with grabbing little hands!

One of the options Margaret had was to tongue-lash the child

and reduce her to tears.

Or, third, if she did not want to make the child fall, or if she

did not want to vent her spleen in angry language, she had

another option. She could have run up the steps, grabbed

Olivia, and rescued her, brought her down to safety.

Grandmother is a lot more powerful than granddaughter, so it

would have been possible to end the crisis by intervening.

All of these things could have been done to a little wanderer

who got out of sight for just a hot minute. But actually none

of these things happened. You want to know what did

happen? It’s a good one. You’ll like it. But you have to wait

to the end of the sermon to find out!

Sometimes we need to be watched. Sometimes somebody

needs to keep an eye on us to protect us or supervise us or

just care for us. Many of us will not do what we are

supposed to do without somebody looking over our

shoulders and keeping track. You may think that you are

independent and a self-starter. And you may be. But I

assure you that most of us do things in an entirely different

way when we are aware that somebody is watching. We

need to be watched.

Are you aware that God is watching? Are you aware of His

all-seeing eye? Now I said, “Are you aware?”. If I were to

ask you if you think that God sees all, right down into your

own life, I’m sure all of us would say “yes”. It is basic to our

theology to understand that God is present, God knows and

God sees. About that there isn’t much argument.

But are you aware of God watching? Do you think about it

often? Do you feel frequently that God sees what you are

doing? My guess is that most of us do not. Most of us run

around oblivious to God’s oversight. What we do not see we

do not think about, and so we are not conscious of God’s

watching us. And since we are not aware of God’s

oversight, we do not understand it. We do not see it for what

it is.

Job, in this tenth chapter, is suddenly aware that God is

watching him. Certainly he would not have disagreed if you