Ponderings of a Philalethist

For some reason today, I had that song running through my head.

“Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little eyes what you see.  Cause the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.”

I don’t know how many times I had sung it when I stopped.  Wondering.

The only times I had heard that were when I was a kid.  In church.

Or when some adult was trying to instill good decision-making in me.

But it always sounded more like guilt.

I thought of the words.  I thought of the faces and the mouths the songs came from.

They never matched.  The words are not harsh.  But they are from a loving parent. 

The Father is looking down in love.  He’s not looking down on us, as in disappointed.  He’s in love with us.  And if you put that “we should be careful” with the fact that He loves us, then you get that because God loves us, He cares about what’s best for us.

It’s funny.

Because I never got that from those that sang it to me when I was little.

It always seemed as though they sang it to control me.

“Here’s a good song to throw the wrench of guilt into his little heathen gears.”

“Hey kid, God is watching you!  Remember the song?”  And off they would go, shaking their finger this way and that, in eternal admonishment.

Remember, Jesus is watching you!

Which reminds me of the joke.

A burglar breaks into a house one night.  He shines his flashlight around, looking for valuables, and when he picks up a CD player to place in his sack, a strange, disembodied voice echoes from the dark saying,  “Jesus is watching you.”

The burglar nearly jumps out of his skin, clicks his flashlight off, frozen in fear.  When he hears nothing more, shakes his head,  then clicks the light back on.  Just as he pulls the stereo out, clear as a bell he hears, “Jesus is watching you.”

Freaking out, he shines his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice.  Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam comes to rest on a parrot.

“Did you say that?” he hisses at the parrot.  “Yep,” the parrot squawks, “I’m just trying to warn you.”   The burglar relaxes. “Warn me, huh?  Who in the world are you to be warning me?”  “Moses,” replied the bird.  “Moses?  Moses the parrot?” the burglar laughs. 

“What kind of people would name a bird Moses?” 

“The same people that would name a Rottweiler Jesus.”

Obviously Jesus is not a Rott.  But I do forget that He’s much worse.  Much greater anyway.  At least for the burglar.  And there are times that I forget that. 

But I also forget that without His grace, I am that burglar, far more screwed than facing a raging rottweiler.

Which brings me back to the song. 

I don’t need someone to tell me to be careful cause God is watching me with love in His eyes.

It would be nice to hear when you are a child that God loves you no matter what.

Not too many people are willing to tell a child who is still learning the world that God loves them - no matter what. 

We only seem to hear other Christians tell us this after we have learned that God will never accept us as we are.  Then we have to re-learn Him all over again - when we find that we were lied to in the first place.

So as a child, we are taught guilt from “well-meaning” Christians trying to teach us morality by pushing us to grow up.

Then as an adult we are told that God never wanted us to “grow up” at all.  He simply loved us as we were and will always do so.

So now I imagine God singing that song to me. 

And for the first time, the mouth, and the face, and the words, all match.

And I believe them.

And the best part is I sense love from this.

Real love.

I can tell it’s real because it isn’t laced with guilt.

And of course, it’s not scrupulously sitting there in the dark waiting to kill me.