There's an Eye Watching You

I wrote a few weeks ago about how I really don't fathom the love of God. And I think that's part of the reason why I don't spend more time praying to Him.

I listened to just an encouraging little sermon by Buddy Bell last week. Buddy's one of my favorite preachers (I oscillate back & forth between him and Jim McGuiggan as to who is my all-time favorite). Buddy preached about an all-seeing eye that's watching you. Do you remember that old-tyme hymn?

All along the road to the soul's true abode,
There's an Eye watching you.
Every step that you take that great Eye is awake,
There's an Eye watching you.

As you make life’s flight, keep the pathway of right
There’s an Eye watching you.
God will warn not to go in the path of the foe
There’s an Eye watching you.

Fix your mind on the goal that sweet home of the soul
There’s an Eye watching you.
Never turn from the way to the Kingdom of the Day
There’s an Eye watching you.

(CHORUS)
Watching you, watching you,
Everyday mind the course you pursue;
Watching you, watching you,
There's an all-seeing Eye watching you.

There's something intimidating about that thought. I mean, do those lyrics make you feel more secure, or more insecure? We could have a mind to resent that all-seeing eye that's a-watchin' us.

Buddy began to talk about Hagar out of Genesis 16. Most of you remember the pickle she found herself in. After letting Abram get her pregnant, and seeing Sarai grow resentful, Hagar ran away. Can you only imagine how afraid she was?... this young pregnant slave girl on the run.

And then God finds her. And speaking through one of His angels, God tries to comfort Sarai. Now, this might seem like an ordinary text to us. Angels speak to folks all the time when we open up our Bible. But this wasn't ordinary to Hagar. In a matter of moments, Hagar realizes that God knows her name, that God knows the name of her child, that God knows about the child's descendants, and that God even knows about the child's personality!

So then Hagar speaks in 16:13...

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." That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi (meaning "The Well of the Living One Who sees me")

In her distress, God was watching her. Buddy goes on to deliver a great line. He said that he thinks the hymn is true, but the spirit of it isn't quite right. Because "the truth is this: its that God loves you so much... [pause for effect] ...He can't take His eyes off of you."

Now, that's a good bit of rhetoric right there. :) Maybe you've heard it somewhere else before -- I think I have, too -- but I thought it was a good line.

So I've been thinking about that concept: loving something so much that you can't take your eyes off of it. I don't think I love anything that much. In fact, the only thing I could conceptualize loving that much is a parent's love for a new-born child. I've been around enough new parents to hear them describe the awe & wonderment of their new-born baby. It's like they're transfixed: they become hypnotized in their great love for this new life. They literally love so much that they can't take their eyes off of their new baby.

So, when I pray tonight, I'm going to envision that the great God receiving my words on the other end is as interested & invested in what I have to say as would be the parent of a new-born child. Still, that's hard for me to grasp. Part of me still doesn't get it. I mean, even for those new parents, the luster of that awe & wonderment wears off after a few diaper changes. Right?

Paul writes the following in Ephesians...

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened [...]

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I pray that for me.