He Sees You When You’re
Sleeping
By Skip Heitzig
There’s a Christmas song that tells us how Santa
Claus “sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if
you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!” The writer of this song
was wrongly giving an imaginary elf the attributes of God. You see, only God
knows everything. This attribute is called omniscience, and it makes Him so
different, so much higher, than mere humans.
The thing about God that really grabbed David’s
attention was His personal and thorough knowledge of him. He said in Psalm 139, “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my
sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You
comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For
there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether”
(Ps. 139:1-4). Amazingly, the God who knows everything about everything
cares enough to know each of us personally.
David reminds us that God knows us inside and
out. He has searched and knows us, including our thoughts and our motives. He
knows when we sit down to relax and when we get up to engage in the activities
of our daily lives. He can even tell what we’re thinking and what we’ll say.
Knowing that God knows about us should cause us to live lives that are pleasing
to Him. In the words of the Christmas song, we should want to “be good for
goodness’ sake!”
David also realized that God’s thoughts toward
Him were both gracious and numerous: “How precious also are
Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count
them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with
You” (Ps. 139:17). God’s thoughts toward us are precious; in other words,
they are loving, concerned thoughts. And His thoughts toward us are continual;
they are beyond counting. If the mythical Santa was said to be watching to see
whether to give or withhold gifts, know this: God is watching because He wants
to give “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or
think” (Eph. 3:20).
The Creator of the Universe, the Almighty God,
who knows each star by name, is thinking about you. He sees you when you’re
sleeping, He knows when you’re awake…and He is there diligently, lovingly
watching over you. “He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He…shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm
121:3-4).
'Twas the
night before Christmas
'Twas the
night before Christmas & out on the ranch
The pond was
froze over & so was the branch.
The snow was
piled up belly-deep to a mule.
The kids were
all home on vacation from school,
And happier
young folks you never did see-
Just all
sprawled around a-watchin' TV.
Then
suddenly, some time around 8 o'clock,
There came a
surprise that gave them a shock!
The power
went off, the TV went dead!
When Grandpa
came in from out in the shed
With an
armload of wood, the house was all dark.
"Just what I
expected," they heard him remark.
"Them power
line wires must be down from the snow.
Seems sorter
like times on the ranch long ago."
"I'll hunt up
some candles," said Mom. "With their light,
And the
fireplace, I reckon we'll make out all right."
The
teen-agers all seemed enveloped in gloom.
Then Grandpa
came back from a trip to his room,
Uncased his
old fiddle & started to play
That old
Christmas song about bells on a sleigh.
Mom started
to sing, & 1st thing they knew
Both Pop
& the kids were all singing it, too.
They sang
Christmas carols, they sang "Holy Night,"
Their eyes
all a-shine in the ruddy firelight.
They played
some charades Mom recalled from her youth,
And Pop read
a passage from God's Book of Truth.
They stayed
up till midnight-and, would you believe,
The
youngsters agreed 'twas a fine Christmas Eve.
Grandpa rose
early, some time before dawn;
And when the
kids wakened, the power was on...
"The power
company sure got the line repaired quick,"
Said Grandpa
- & no one suspected his trick.
Last night,
for the sake of some old-fashioned fun,
He had pulled
the main switch - the old Son-of-a-Gun!
-anonymous
O Holy Night
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