A Year With God, Day 7 of 366

Well, I have managed to post every day for a week . .  one down 51 or so to go.  Lacking any more in depth ideas, I found another random verse that caught my eye:

Ezekiel 8:12

He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol?  They say, 'The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.'"

My first thought, as I read this, was that this is rather the opposite of the verse I read last night.  God is always with us, which is a comforting thought, as I said last night.  But God is always with us, and sees the sins we try to hide, not as comforting a thought for tonight.

But this verse speaks specifically about the elders of the house of Israel, meaning, perhaps,  the elders at the temple, or maybe the elders in government.  And so I see this as a warning to those in power.  There is a temptation to think that because one has power, that one can hide one's sins from public view.

But we know that this is untrue.  Sooner or later, the scandal always comes out. And God always knows what's going on, no matter how we try to hide it.

So, if I sin, and then I try to hide that sin, does my sin double?  I think of Adam and Eve, hiding in the garden after eating the fruit.  I think of Cain, who slew Abel and then hid his body.  Or David who sent Bathsheba's husband into battle so he could claim her for himself.

It must be something in human nature, to try to hide our imperfections.  The first impulse of Adam and Eve after realizing right from wrong, was to hide their nakedness.

But God sees through our clothes and our lies and the things we do to fool ourselves into thinking we always do right.  So the challenge then, is to admit our sins and mistakes, openly, and with God's help, do our best to correct them, and to not repeat them.