Watchful Eye

Published on May 01, 2008 by Erin Vassey

I push “end call” on my cell phone and remain sitting in my living room with a heaviness upon my heart.  I spent an hour in a conversation with a best friend from high school. He was asking all the typical questions that people ask when they are seeking a greater understanding of our Lord.  “I am a good person and always try to do the ‘right thing’ so why would a God that loves me so much send me to hell if I don’t believe in Jesus?” “What about evolution?” “How can you just put your faith in something that you can’t see.”  My heart is racing as I am answering all of his questions and praying to the Lord, “Oh please Lord, let him come into a personal relationship with You.”   

As we are half way through the conversation he says, “I have known you over half my life.  I have known you since long before you started working at a church. I like to think that I know all the good the bad and the ugly,  and I have to say that you are the only Christian I have met that is real and not putting on an act.” This was when my heart, racing at the excitement of sharing Christ turned heavy with sadness. I asked him to expand on what he meant. He said that he has been purposefully trying to talk more to a few people in his life that he knows are Christians and he is trying to figure out how they live their lives and how it is different than what he does.   He said that he often feels an intense judgment, a sense that “we are better than you” in his conversations with other Christians, as well as, witnessing some saying one thing, then living another.  He finished by saying, “I don’t want to be a part of that.” 

Conversations like that remind me of just how much we as believers in Christ are being watched. People are wanting to see how we are different than the world.  They are longing to see a love and grace radiate from us in all we do that surpasses all human understanding, NOT judgment and NOT hypocrisy.  They are longing to see Christ.  I do not believe that this means we try to hide our faults or the areas that God is working in us. Rather, we let them see because it is in those weak areas in ourselves that people are able to see how we ALL need Christ to transform us to be more like him. “Set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” 1 Timothy 4:12