“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
had asked him whether God saw all that was going on. It
was a perfectly acceptable intellectual idea. But after all his
losses, after his friends began to push him, after his prayers
and his pleas seemed to find no answer, suddenly Job is
aware that God is watching. And he’d just as soon God not
watch! He finds the eye of God oppressive. He is troubled
at what it means for God to watch him.
Job considers three possibilities:
I
First, Job thinks that maybe God is watching what is
happening, but has changed sides! That God no longer
cares about Job, but wants to end his life, wants the powers
of evil to win. Job is becoming paranoid. God is watching,
but Job wonders if maybe God is out to get him. Job asks
God a question:
“Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your
hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?”
God, are you now on the other side? Are you about to
destroy your own handiwork? God, are you like the potter
who is not satisfied with his craftmanship, and so breaks it up
before anybody can use it? Is God like the artist who looks
at his painting, sees its flaws, and slashes it to ribbons
before it goes to the gallery? Is it possible that God sees us,
but is bent on destroying us? Just as Margaret might have
jerked Olivia off those steps and made her fall, is it possible
that God jerks us around, tired of us, ready to get rid of
another failed creation?
I’ve dealt with people who felt that way -- people who felt as
though the whole world was against them. Nothing they
attempted would prosper, and the very universe was their
enemy. It takes time to get people to admit this, but
eventually they will -- they will admit that they fear that God
Himself has turned against them and is bent on destroying
them.
I have a friend who has suffered many things. She has lost
her health, she has lost of her job, she faces severe
challenges from difficult family members. When I talk with
her, she won’t say it at first, but down deep she
acknowledges that she is afraid of God. God is watching
her, and it seems to her that He is looking for a chance to
hurt.
But then when I talk with her I ask her who she spends time
with, and I find that she seeks out people who are
themselves so damaged, so troubled, that they are bound to
pull her down with them. Your experience of other people
colors your experience of God. And when your community,
your peers, seem to want to do nothing more than tear you
down, you will begin to feel that God too wants to tear you
down.
Job’s fear that God may want to destroy him actually came
from the vibes he was getting from his friends. Job’s friends
take a special delight in watching him suffer. They enjoy his
misery. It takes their mind off their own deficits if they can
see somebody else in trouble. And so they tear Job down
and lead him to wonder if God too is on his case.
Are you surrounded by hostile people? Have you allowed
the venom that comes from jealous lips to poison your spirit?
Have you permitted the Cains out there in the world to kill
your Abel? If you are feeling that God is watching you only
so that He may pull you down, then consider whose voices
you are listening to. They may be the voices of those who
would like to have you down in the gutter where they are, so
that they don’t feel so bad about themselves.
No, let’s reject the first possibility. Margaret did not jerk
Olivia off the steps and make her hurt herself. And when
God watches us, it is not because He wants to destroy us.
Be careful who you listen to.
II
But then Job thought a little more, and wondered whether
God was watching just to catch him in a fault, to trap him in a
mistake. Job said to God, “I know you are watching”. Is it
this, Lord, that you just enjoy “gotcha”? That you just take
great pleasure in my mistakes?
“Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? ... that you
seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, although you know that
I am not guilty”
Friends, it’s one thing to have somebody find and correct
your mistakes in order to help you. It’s another thing to have
somebody search them out and make billboards for all the
world to see! Does God watch us in order to ridicule our
sins?
When I was in engineering school, I had an organic
chemistry professor who took great delight in putting on
public display the stupidity of his students. He would grade
our papers and then he would sort them in grade order to
give them back. Not alphabetical order, not the order of
seating in the classroom, but in grade order, from the best to
the worst. So on those rare occasions that I might have
lucked out with an A or a B in that class, the test was handed
back quickly, with no comment. A C or a D might merit some
wry remarks when it was given back. But let me tell you,
organic chemistry was tough, and I can remember waiting
and waiting for my name to be called. It seemed that
everybody else had theirs back, and I knew what that meant.
It was not only that I had failed and had to be named a failure
in front of my classmates; when he got to my paper, he
started to pick it apart in public. “Listen to this. Isn’t this
ridiculous? What was Smith thinking? How could anybody
write such drivel?”
Well, you know how I felt. My teacher had watched for an
opportunity to humiliate me. Yes, I did poorly on the test.
Yes, I messed up. But because of what he did, I found that I
lost the desire to learn that subject! I lost the desire to do
better! I just wanted to go home and escape into a mindless
TV show or fill my stomach with calories, just to forget!
But can you guess how I eventually handled my professor’s
vicious game? I did what I had to do to pass the course, but
I listened for another voice. I listened for another voice to tell
me something I could hear. I watched for another pair of
eyes to affirm me rather than tear me down. Yes, after that
class I listened to the Lord calling me to do something else!
After that class I looked for someone who would watch me in
love and guide me in a different way.
Job is mistaken. When God watches us, it is to love
us into obedience and not to humiliate us. Margaret didn’t
berate Olivia for climbing the stairs. That wouldn’t have
done any good. That baby was not equipped to understand.
She would have responded badly to the emotion of a tongue-
lashing. God does not pursue us just to watch us fail. Nor
does God seek out our inquity, as Job put it, just to enjoy our
failures. God seeks us, but in love. God watches us, and
yes, God watches our sin, but it is to guide us. It is to urge
us to turn elsewhere. It is to move us from fruitless pursuit to
positive productivity. Job says, “I know you are watching.”
We need to be sure we understand that God watches with
the eyes of love and not of ridicule.
III
There was a third option. Do you remember? Here was
Olivia, up the steps, dangerously teetering on the brink of
disaster. Margaret, watching her, could have pulled her
down and let her get hurt, but she did not. Seeing what the
baby had done, grandmother could have chewed her out
royally, but she did not.
A third possibility, the one most likely, the one we would
generally do, that Margaret would rush up the steps, lift the
child in her arms and rescue. We’d like that, wouldn’t we?
Just as we’d like a God who would reach out His arms and
scoop us up when He sees us in trouble; just as we’d like a
God who would watch us and fix everything. Just as we like
to sing about how everything is going to be all right, God is
going to fix it all. Amen? Wrong! Wrong!
That’s what Job wanted and hoped for. “Lord, you are
watching me. I know you are. Do for me what nobody else
will do.”
“You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with
bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.”
Lord, you’ve taken care of me a long time. Can’t you do it
again? Can’t you rescue me? Can’t you just lift me out of all
that is going on and make it all right?
Oh, we would love that. We would love to think that God is
watching us so that He can step in every time we mess up
and fix it. We would love to have a cosmic insurance policy
such that every time we get it wrong, big old God steps in.
“You’re in good hands with all-God!” We would love a safety
net, so that no matter what foolishness we visit, no matter
what blunders we make, God would step in and take charge.
Watch us, God, for we are about to sail off into space, and
we need for you to be godly, right on cue!
But Job discovered that God does not do that. God does not
do that. God watches but does not step in on our timetable,
at our command. God watches us, yes, but God does not
rescue us from our own foolish pride or our own selfish
arrogance. Instead God equips us. He empowers us. He
provides for us resources that we are to use. God refuses to
violate our freedom, but puts at our disposal the things we
need, and expects us to use them.
You know the old story, don’t you, about the fellow whose
house was surrounded by flood waters? So he climbed up
on the roof and began to pray that the Lord would rescue
him. His neighbor next door, whose house was a little
higher, said, “I can throw you a rope and can pull you
through the water over to my house.” But the fellow said,
“No, the Lord is going to rescue me.” And he went back to
praying. As the waters rose, someone came along in a boat
and said, “Here, come down off that roof and climb in this
boat.” But the man said, “No, I’m waiting for the Lord. The
Lord will save me. No boat.” And he went back to praying
again. In a moment, just as the waters were about to crest
on the top of the house, along came a helicopter. The pilot
dangled a rope ladder and shouted, “Here, climb this. I can
get you out of here.” But the fellow waved off the helicopter.
“No, don’t want your help. The Lord is going to save me.”
And as he prayed on, with the waters rising up to his
eyeballs, he cried out, “Lord, when will you save me? When
will you help me?” They say that as the fellow went under, a
great voice was heard from heaven, “Who do you think sent
the rope, the boat, and the helicopter?”
No, Job, do not expect God to reach out of heaven and do
for you what you would not do for yourself. Do not sit back
and dare God to rescue you when He has already provided
you with resources. Yes, Job, God is watching. He is
watching in love, and is watching to see if you will be
responsible with what He has given you. Even in your
circumstances, Job, you still have many resources from God.
No, Margaret did not grab Olivia up and just rescue her. Not
quite. For the good news of the Gospel is that God is
available to us when we trust Him. All that God asks of us,
when life is falling apart, is that we trust Him. The good
news of the Gospel is that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us, becoming one with us in our trials, and making
Himself totally available to us -- but we have to trust Him.
We have to believe that He accepts us, that He loves us.
We have to believe that what He wants from us, more than
anything, is our trust. He wants us to take Him at His word,
to abandon all our anxieties and jettison all our fears. He
wants us to put ourselves at His disposal. Trust Him and He
will partner with us. Doubt Him, question Him, and He will
watch and watch and watch some more, but He will not
simply rescue us. He wants our trust.
No, Margaret did not jerk Olivia off the stairs and hurt her.
No, Margaret did not scream at Olivia and make her feel
defeated. No, Margaret did not rush up the stairs and snatch
the little tyke from certain disaster. Here’s what happened.
Olivia turned around, saw where she was up the steps, saw
her grandmother out there, and, without hesitation, without a
moment of fear or a touch of anxiety, threw herself off the
steps toward Margaret’s arms. That child trusted that her
grandmother was watching, she trusted her grandmother’s
love, and put herself in the care of one who loved her.
Job said,
“I know that this was your purpose ... you watch me.”
We say, “He will not let you out of His sight for a minute.”
And we thank Him.
And then we say,
“But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my
trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I
have entrusted to him.”
