Who you are when no one is watching is who you really are, and it’s this private self that is judged by God, not the self you pretend to be in public, writes Ruta Mave.

Do you believe in God? Do you go to church and pray to God? And whether you do or don’t believe in God if they were a person like you and I how would you describe their personality?

Is your picture of God a benevolent one, one who is fair and just, who is loving and kind while being firm but fair? Or is it a picture of fear and wrath of plagues, floods, tempest and storms?

When we say “God is watching you”, if you believe God to be loving and kind then knowing God is omnipresent and omnipotent, watching you from above and all around should give you a sense of faith, courage and protection. If you believe God is the supreme judge of good and evil then being a good church going Christian you would have no fear, only a feeling of love from such a phrase. 

What if you haven’t been good or Christian would be being reminded that your actions behind closed doors surreptitiously hidden from others, the omnipresent will know of your actions, and they will be judged and held against you on your day of reckoning at the pearly gates to heaven.  How would you react? Scared, frightened, shaken, guilty?

From what I have seen, some of the worst offenders in humanity and society are those who go to church regularly and swing this fact around like a halo above their not so angelic selves. They preach to others, to attend church, they sit publicly looking pious and benign, whilst counting the minutes as points of repentance, and the money they donate as goodwill that will erase any wrong doings they have committed during the week between devotion and prayer in the big house.

They are misguided, money does not buy love, God’s favour or entry to heaven. One could be mistaken when looking at the churches around the world, all gold gilt or excessively large and worth millions. The poorer the people the larger the church. They obviously don’t believe, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:24).

More wars and atrocities have been started and justified in the name of God than any other excuse. You never hear soldiers or politicians standing at the helm of their command announcing “In the name of Satan, the Devil, the almighty wicked, we will fight for greed, power and pride”. No, it’s always “In the name of God we fight for peace, truth and love”. I can never understand how we can fight for peace, kill for love. Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

Psalm 121:8 The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. It has always been said God is everywhere, but if we took it so literally would we feel uncomfortable thinking this when we have a shower? Maybe God protects us, answers our prayers, guides us when we need it, not when we want it. The saying goes ‘Trust in God but lock your car’ – there has to be personal accountability for one’s own actions.

Proverbs 15:3 – The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. Do we really think we can get away with unlawful, unethical or criminal to nasty and petty actions without it registering on God’s radar? By the actions of many people, who have preached church on one hand whilst stabbing you in the back with the other shows they have no real conception of omnipresent.  Who you are when no one is watching is who you really are, and it’s this private self that is judged by God, not the self you pretend to be in public.

Jesus said one should not be hypocrites, who love to pray in church and on the street corners, to be seen by men not to be one with God unseen. These people don’t actually believe in God, they are just in it for the rewards or it looks good on their social CV.

I don’t always attend church. My communion is private and is often found amongst the creatures great and small within the gardens of our paradise here on earth. And when on judgement day if St Peter asks why didn’t I go to church, I will say, I don’t need the public attention of others to decide if I am worthy. I know God is watching me and I know that God knows whether I am more wicked or good, if my work in the community is given freely and honestly and if I honour and share the gift’s bestowed on us all.  Knowing God is watching is a comfort good enough for me.