Monday, March 20, 2017

The Examined Life

UV 2231/10000 The examined life

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
Proverbs 15 v 3

The Lord is not only omnipresent, He is also all seeing. He sees our innermost being. We cannot hide from Him but we can hide in Him. We cannot wear masks to cover our faces or hide our nakedness from Him. Neither king nor commoner, leader or follower can avoid His piercing gaze. He is always searching our hearts and minds. He is looking for people whose hearts are ordained perfectly towards Him so that He can manifest His grace and power in their lives.

He knows each one of us so thoroughly that if we need to get an insight into ourselves, we will do well to seek His help. He knows the mapping of our strengths and weaknesses, our pattern of beliefs and values. He knows our thoughts and attitudes, our actions, reactions and habits. Nothing can be kept secret from Him. He watches both the good and the evil we think, say and do. He does not interfere or punish us instantly but waits for us graciously to come to Him after messing up. The consciousness that He is constantly watching us so closely should guard our every thought, every word and action from the ways of wilful error and folly. It should fill us with reverence to begin with and end in greater wisdom.

Socrates, the Greek philosopher said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The corollary therefore is that the examined life is worth living. But we are not qualified or able to examine ourselves. The mind does not know what it cannot see. The manger leader has the advantage of the external eye- the eye of the Lord to examine him and to set right anything that is wrong in his heart or mind. The eye of the Lord acts as a mind scanar, a heart radar, a spiritual torchlight, a laser light to remove what is superfluous or harmful. It is this that distinguishes the manger leader from the pyramidal leader who is mentally, spiritually, morally blind and does not know his own future. The manger leader too does not know the future but he knows the One who knows the future. The Lord sees what afflicts individuals, institutions, organisations, nations and the world and He knows the solution to every problem. He sees our hurts, our inadequacies, our insufficiency, our deficiencies, our challenges. He sees the one who commits a murder and the one who helps a victim, the one who breaks His law and the one who keeps it. He knows the difference between the two lies in their hearts. He knows the end from the beginning of everything. He permits the goodness of sunshine and rain to fall on both the good and the evil among men for His love is perfect. We must ask the Lord to search our hearts and minds every day and ask that He heals the hurts, cleanses the evil, removes the hidden sin, delivers us from every inner bondage. We can ask Him to flash a light on the path we should take, the steps we should execute in all areas of our lives.

Prateep V Philip

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