More St. Benedict musings:
“Let a man consider that God is always looking at him from heaven,”. Ok, let’s stop here, and let’s remind ourselves to discard the gender driven pronoun and replace it with “Let
ALL consider”.
Now continue. Not only is He always looking, did you know our
“actions” are
“everywhere visible” to God? I don’t know about you, but how often do we consider that our God sees EVERTYTHING. Not only that, our actions are
“constantly being reported to God by the Angels.” (Oh no, those pesky angels!)
Kidding aside, scripture tells us that
“Searcher of minds and hearts is God.” (Ps 7:9). “You have read my thoughts from a far, with all my ways you are familiar.” (Ps 139:3). Considering and knowing this to be true, shouldn’t we keep guard over our thoughts and everything that transpires from there? Even better, what if we took our thoughts, and made all of them a conversation throughout the day, with the God who knows and hears
everything.
Now this approach becomes an opportunity to talk through, rethink, reimagine, and as needed, to apologize to our God who we have been “thinking” with throughout the day. Now, our thoughts move from random to intentional, careless to thoughtful, and lead us to a means of deepening our connection to the God who loves us.
If God is our ready companion, let’s invite Him into every part of our lives. In order that we may be careful about all that we think, do and say, let’s use this occasion to set off in a different direction. If we attend to this daily, careful and conscientious path,
“the Lord will reward me according to my righteousness”.+