Rev Norman Hamilton: Nothing is secret about everyday life anymore

Cookies are tiny amounts of data that log how long you spend on a website or keep track of the items you are buying online. They are needed to make the web work properly for us, but they are also like ‘Big Brother’ tracking and logging almost everything we do.

Keeping tabs on us is very big business. CCTV in every shop, and increasingly in private homes; speed cameras on the roads. Bodycams being worn by police officers; Amazon even keeps records of every motion detected by its doorbells, as well as the exact time the doorbell was pressed.

Most of us have got used to the loyalty cards which allow the supermarkets to create an accurate picture of when, where and how we shop

Almost nothing about everyday life is secret anymore. Christians have always been very aware of that. For God has His eye on us even more closely than the CCTV camera in our local supermarket. The book of Proverbs tells us clearly that the Lord sees what happens everywhere; he is watching us, whether we do good or evil.

This is echoed in the Old Testament story of how Samuel was guided to choose a new king for the people. There were lots of possible candidates, but God said: “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

That reality doesn’t frighten me, but it does remind me that I shouldn’t even think about being a hypocrite, or a bluffer, or devious, or shoddy in anything I do. God sees me exactly as I am, and he knows all my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And when I get things wrong, that is not captured on video, nor logged as a cookie in some heavenly computer to be held against me. There is ready forgiveness through my relationship with Jesus Christ, provided of course that I seek that forgiveness, rather than willingly continue as if nothing really matters. The prophet Isaiah even speaks of God remembering our sins no more. What a gift from the centre of heaven.

I am increasingly uneasy about so much surveillance of daily life. But I am grateful that even though Jesus knows all about me, He is in the business of bringing salvation to me rather than surveillance. I can go about life with a really easy conscience. In a troubled world, that is a wonderful privilege.