The God who sees me
This reflection by ERIC GAUDION reminds us that while the world may watch our actions, God sees our hearts, bringing both conviction and comfort, and assuring us that we are never unseen.
The unblinking eye of CCTV now sweeps across much of modern Western life. Doorbell cameras, dashcams, security systems, street surveillance enhanced by facial-recognition software and, of course, millions of smartphones mean that very little happens in Britain without being visually recorded. We live, quite literally, on camera.
Police and security agencies depend on this technology to help keep the country safe. Television producers love it too, mining vast archives of real-life footage for low-cost programming built around human behaviour at its best and worst.
Yet long before digital surveillance, the prophet Ezekiel was given a startling glimpse of something remarkably similar. Living in the sixth century BC, Ezekiel was granted intimate access to the hidden goings-on inside God’s temple, an experience that reads uncannily like a video log (see Ezekiel 8). Carried by the Spirit into the heart of the sacred precincts, he was invited to peer through a hole in the wall and observe the kind of “detestable things” being carried out in secret in what should have been a place of prayer and worship.
What he saw was devastating. Digging further, Ezekiel emerged unseen into a concealed chamber where Israel’s elders were burning incense to idols. Worse still, he was shown about 25 men standing with their backs to the temple, bowing down to worship the sun. The consequences were severe and terrifying; these sins would ultimately lead to God’s people being exiled from their land for 70 years.
Ancient visions like this, alongside our modern surveillance culture, should cause us to pause and reflect. Long before Ezekiel, back in the days of Abram and Sarai, a vulnerable servant girl named Hagar fled into the desert, pregnant and alone. There, she addressed the Lord with these unforgettable words: “You are the God who sees me,” (Genesis 16:13).
That simple declaration captures something profoundly true about the nature of God. He is everywhere, always present, and “neither slumbers nor sleeps”. His all-seeing eye records far more than outward behaviour. It searches hearts. While CCTV can capture what a person does, it cannot know what they will do or why. God can. When God saw Hagar, He knew her pain, her purpose and her future. When Ezekiel was shown the hidden sins of Israel’s leaders, it revealed the true direction of their hearts.
There is, however, a positive side to living under watchful eyes. Most of these devices are known as “security cameras” for a reason; they offer protection. There is reassurance in knowing that someone is always keeping watch. Cameras on major roads change the way people drive, and accident rates fall in areas covered by CCTV.
God’s presence brings a far greater promise. As King Asa was reminded, “the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him,” (2 Chronicles 16:9). God watches not to trap us, but to strengthen us.
I know this personally. I spent long stretches confined to lonely hospital beds in London, battling serious illness. My distant island home felt impossibly far away. Sleepless nights were marked by pain and deep homesickness. In those moments, I clung to Hagar’s prayer: “You are the God who sees me.”
Like the Psalmist, I discovered that God’s all-seeing presence brings comfort even in the darkest places: “even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you,” (Psalm 139:12). We may not always feel it, but we are never unseen. An all-seeing eye watches over us now and it belongs to One who is never off duty.
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.