The Watcher
She wondered what brought him to that same spot every evening.
During the course of earning her master’s degree, a woman found it necessary to commute several times a week from Victory, Vermont to the state university in Burlington, a good hundred miles away. Coming home late at night, she would see an old man sitting by the side of her road.
He was always there, in subzero temperatures, in stormy weather, no matter how late she returned. He made no acknowledgment of her passing. Sometimes the snow settled on his cap and shoulders as if he were merely another gnarled old tree.
She often wondered what brought him to that same spot every evening – what stubborn habit, private grief or mental disorder. I wonder if she didn’t sometimes begin to doubt her senses, or believe in ghosts.
Finally, she asked a neighbor of hers, “Have you ever seen an old man who sits by the road late at night?”
“Oh, yes,” said her neighbor, “many times.”
“Is he ... a little out of it upstairs? Does he ever go home?”
“He’s no more out of it than you or me,” her neighbor laughed. “And he goes home right after you do. You see, he doesn’t like the idea of you driving by yourself out late all alone on these back roads, so every night he walks out to wait for you. When he sees your taillights disappear around the bend, and he knows you’re okay, he goes home to bed.”
In his despair and confusion Job wondered about the undesired attention he was getting from a God he was no longer certain about. “What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone for an instant … O watcher of men” (Job 7:17-20)?
Be certain of this. God makes much of you, gives you attention, and will never leave you alone not because he’s some strange stalker or maniacal madman. He’s The Watcher. He makes sure you’re okay.
PRAYER: Dear God, what I can’t see you do. What I don’t understand you can. When I view your presence in my life as a strange interruption give me the faith to believe that whatever you do is for my benefit. Give me the courage to follow you into the darkest of nights or the longest of journeys or the mightiest of troubles, because you are there with me. Watching me. Amen.