When You Think No One Is Looking
Okay, so it has been a while since I have posted a thought here, but I was recently sent an email entitled ‘When you thought I wasn't looking.....’ It is one of those generic emails which get sent around from person to person, most often mass mailed to everyone in a person’s contact list. Displaying a cute picture of a little child with their arms crossed, it declares, ‘A message every adult should read because children are watching you and doing as you do, not as you say,’ as it shares a list of positive things children may see us do in our daily lives. And, as always, the email ends with ‘send this’ on to others.
Well, call me a pessimist if you must, but I cannot help but consider also the negative aspects we must share with our children, or any person for that matter, when we think they aren’t looking. This goes especially for the Christian, being this is a Christian blog, but also for the non Christian as well; given we are not only often judged by what/how people think we should act, but also by how our actions line up with our ideals we share aloud.
When I was in the US Army, a sergeant, one I invited to church a few times but never did he come, shared a story with me. He said one evening as they set down for supper, he bowed his head to pray over their food. After the prayer, his son asked his him why they were praying over the food since he had just cursed moments before.
Even a child can see hypocrisy, and quite frankly they don’t understand it until we teach them (by our actions) so very well how to do it. So, how much more can those who spend the majority of their time looking around the beam in their own eye spot our inconsistencies of voice and action?
We are teaching our children and most often others, while displaying what we really think about our voiced ideals, many times silently by our actions. Even as we endow positive ideals into the minds and hearts of persons by our good deeds, we also provide them opportunity to evolve into our own hypocrisy and/or find reason to ridicule us and our ideals by our contradictory actions.
However true, our own failures to stand firm in our actions toward our voiced Christian values – or any positive values for that matter – should not invalidate them, the reality is it most often does in the hearts and minds of those wishing to find a way to dismiss them already.
Let us not give one a reason to blaspheme or deny that which is right.
Well, call me a pessimist if you must, but I cannot help but consider also the negative aspects we must share with our children, or any person for that matter, when we think they aren’t looking. This goes especially for the Christian, being this is a Christian blog, but also for the non Christian as well; given we are not only often judged by what/how people think we should act, but also by how our actions line up with our ideals we share aloud.
When I was in the US Army, a sergeant, one I invited to church a few times but never did he come, shared a story with me. He said one evening as they set down for supper, he bowed his head to pray over their food. After the prayer, his son asked his him why they were praying over the food since he had just cursed moments before.
Even a child can see hypocrisy, and quite frankly they don’t understand it until we teach them (by our actions) so very well how to do it. So, how much more can those who spend the majority of their time looking around the beam in their own eye spot our inconsistencies of voice and action?
We are teaching our children and most often others, while displaying what we really think about our voiced ideals, many times silently by our actions. Even as we endow positive ideals into the minds and hearts of persons by our good deeds, we also provide them opportunity to evolve into our own hypocrisy and/or find reason to ridicule us and our ideals by our contradictory actions.
However true, our own failures to stand firm in our actions toward our voiced Christian values – or any positive values for that matter – should not invalidate them, the reality is it most often does in the hearts and minds of those wishing to find a way to dismiss them already.
Let us not give one a reason to blaspheme or deny that which is right.
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