A University of Newcastle study cited in the latest Smithsonian (September 2006, p.24) shows that a pair of watchful eyes make a big difference. Researchers have long known that we behave better when we know we are being watched. What the new study found was that even a two-dimensional image can make a difference. Researchers set up a coffee stand with a sign suggesting the price per cup. People were left to the honor system for payment. They placed a picture of flowers next to the price, and then a picture of a pair of eyes. People were three times more likely to pay for coffee, and pay the suggested price when a photograph of eyes was staring at them.
This has certainly been my experience. When I was a kid one of the favorite hymns we sang out of Sacred Selections was “There’s and All-Seeing Eye Watching 
You.” The chorus goes: “There’s and eye, there’s an eye, there’s an all seeing eye watching you.” Creepy. Why only one? Until this song gave me the willies, I never pictured God as a Cyclops. Then again, the song doesn’t depict a Cyclops so much as a disembodied eye – like a sinister, living CBS logo peering through the crack in the door, the space in the curtains, from beyond the bathroom mirror. If the object of the hymn was to scare a ten year old boy into paralysis, then it often succeeded.
You.” The chorus goes: “There’s and eye, there’s an eye, there’s an all seeing eye watching you.” Creepy. Why only one? Until this song gave me the willies, I never pictured God as a Cyclops. Then again, the song doesn’t depict a Cyclops so much as a disembodied eye – like a sinister, living CBS logo peering through the crack in the door, the space in the curtains, from beyond the bathroom mirror. If the object of the hymn was to scare a ten year old boy into paralysis, then it often succeeded.
At about the same time my brother and I went to the YMCA for swim classes. I remember always looking up to make sure my mom or my granddad were sitting there watching - not that that made much practical difference as neither of them could swim, but make a difference it did – a big one in terms of my own confidence to jump off the diving board the first time.
The notion of being watched can be either sinister or reassuring, an irritation or a comfort. When my dad would tell me to clean out the garage, then stand and watch me do it; that was irritating. When I was in plays at OVC, and the kids from back home would come to see them; that was special.
The difference sometimes lies in the intent of the watcher, and sometimes the actions of the watched. Even if you have nothing to hide (and we all have things to hide), no one wants (or should be made to endure) the intrusion of Big Brother. It is also true, Biblically true that “men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil,” (John 3. 19).
God is omniscient, and as such sees everything – a fact David celebrates in Psalm 139: O Yahweh, you have searched me and known me…you are intimately acquainted with all my ways…you have enveloped me behind and before…where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I escape from your presence? If I say ‘surely darkness will hide me’…even darkness is not dark to you and the night is as bright as day…” David’s response to this watchfulness is positive and overwhelming: Such knowledge is too wonderful to me…How precious are your thoughts!!”
Some of us feel threatened by God’s omniscience, while others of us feel comforted by it. The variable is not God, he is the constant. The same passage from John that describes our love of darkness reminds us that God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (3.16). His love is constant, as is his watchfulness, for he never sleeps (Psalm 121.4). His ability to see is absolute – there is no darkness at all with God, only light (I John 1.5).
Our response to his pair of watchful eyes differs based upon us – our intentions and actions, not upon him. Are we the objects of surveillance or the beneficiaries of vigilance? We decide that. God’s eyes, his mind, his heart, his intentions are the same. Always.
