God Sees
One of my hobbies is to collect photos of outdoor/streetside church signs. I will be blogging about them from time to time. I didn’t start collecting these because they inspired my connection with God or the churches they represent…in fact the opposite is true. Unfortunately, many of photos have come from my town, even the street outside my neighborhood. You’ve seen them out there; “Eternity: smoking or non,” or “You think it’s hot here. – God.” etc. infinitum. Most often I am mystified as to why the church is representing themselves and God in this way. Do they have any idea how detrimental their message could be anothers’ journey? On the whole I don’t know that those posting the signs really think through what message the sign is communicating about God and their specific church 
So, here is the one I took recently, “God sees what you are doing.” This is quite mild really…I’ve seen much much worse. I wanted to dissect a more subtle one to make a point. The meaning taken really has to do with your perception of God. My perception of the church’s purpose in putting these words up is to “convict people of their sin.” My understanding of and experience with God and people has impressed on me two ideals related to this notion.
First, it’s not the role of the church to “convict the world of sin.” I understand this as God’s role, specifically the role of the Holy Spirit. The church does not have capacity to do this… and when they do, the world is not convicted, they see through it. It is understood as blatant hypocrisy. At large this explains why the church is perceived as community of judgment rather than a community of grace and healing.
Second, God’s influence and simply being human is enough to convince people they are “sinful” or lacking abundant life. God’s convincing Spirit and life’s realities here on earth wakes people to their inadequacies. The job of the church is not to convict the world or protect God’s holy reputation. God is capable of doing both. The church is in a unique position to offer life, God’s life, to those who wake up to emptiness and death. Instead of signs communicating death, our signs are to be conduits of hope communicating God’s life.
To read the sign in a positive manner, I can read this sign and think…”thank God that God sees what I’m doing.” Even if what I am doing is suspect or outright foul. God sees me as a son, forgiven, as one in intimate union with himself. Because I am God’s and I am seen and known I can trust in his presence and guidance despite and in the midst of my moronic behavior. In another direction, I can know that if I am in difficult time of suffering…God sees me. God is with me.
We, as people, are in fact a sign, a message, as Thomas Merton says – a word expressed by God. God desires to live in and through us uniquely offering his divine life. God is always giving people a sign, us.