| “The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” |
| —Proverbs 15:3 |
How often, while driving in traffic, have you seen a blatant disregard for the law and for safety? Someone passes another car on the right. A car sails by you doing 80 in a 55 mph zone. A driver makes a turn where signs clearly indicate “NO TURNS.” My reaction, is probably like yours: “Where are the police when you need them?”
The “All-Seeing Eye of God”—or, His Omnipresence—sometimes gets forgotten. We fail to remember that even our thoughts do not go unnoticed by God. In other words, God’s ability to see and perceive everything that happens to us or within us can either bring us great fear or great comfort.
From Psalm 139:4, we learn that before a word is even on our tongues, God knows it completely. That should give us pause every time we speak. In Psalm 139:11-12, we read that we can’t hide from Him. He sees in the darkness as well as in the light. It is crazy to think He can’t see us!
Yet, we can gain comfort from the fact that God sees what others do to us or say about us. Jesus taught His disciples when he first sent them out, as recorded in Matthew 10:26:
…that there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.
And, He was talking about people who would abuse and betray the disciples in their ministry.
God wants us to trust Him that He does see. He does hear. He does know our pain when others malign us. Psalm 33:13 tells us that:
…from heaven, the Lord looks down and sees all mankind.
In Psalm 33:18, The Psalmist writes:
The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love.
We sometimes may lose our patience waiting on God. But, we need to realize that He will resolve all the issues that trouble us.
Abraham responded when God told him that He was about to destroy Sodom because of their great sin. Abraham believed that Lot and his family would be spared because they were “the righteous” members of that terrible society. Abraham’s rhetorical question in Genesis 18:25 reveals his trust in God’s ability to get it right:
Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?
To take a sober look at God’s Omnipresence means that while we need to keep careful watch of our own behaviors, we also must learn to trust God, in His own time, to take care of those things we cannot make right when we say to Him, “Did you see that?”
