Sometimes I like to go to a place where there are lots of people just to sit and observe. It may be the mall, airport, or even a grocery store. My life has been full of watching people. I didn't come by this trait naturally. Rather, the trait was born out of my childhood. I watched to know what mood people might be in as I was rather insecure and afraid a lot. Watching kept me from being the center of someone's wrath. Watching also gave me hope. Watching the distant horizon waiting for clouds signaling the rain was coming and work on the farm would cease. Watching the clock in 7th grade until the teacher told me "Time may pass, but will you Mr. Hawley?" Watching and looking are different and the same. Different in motive and need and the same in procedure and application. I remember walking around the neighborhood with my young children. As we walked I stopped and picked up a coin that was on the sidewalk. A little while later I did it again. My kids asked me how I spotted the coins. I explained to them that I knew what a sidewalk looked like and my attention was caught by anything that wasn't sidewalk. They soon began finding coins and rock and other items that we celebrated finding but left where they were! Watching involves intentional action while looking is subconscious gazing. While looking can turn into watching, the opposite rarely happens.
On Saturday while waiting in a parking lot I was parked alongside a SUV. I noticed that the right rear wheel was missing a lug nut. It's a guy thing! Okay?! When my parties returned to the car so did the man who drove the SUV. I rolled down the window and told him about his missing lug nut. He was thankful and said he would take care of it and we drove off. My daughter asked me if the wheel was really missing a lug nut. I told her that it was. She said, "So you were waiting for him to come out so you could tell him?" I told her I was and that's what guys do. She said, in her 15 year old language, "Whatever." and we went on. BUT she was watching me and looking at what I was doing. She was learning a lesson whether she knew it or not. That's the goal of watching and looking. We learn. Once we learn, we should pass that learning on to others. One of my favorite games is to sit with someone and guess what people are thinking, doing, going or what their life is like. I've learned to take it a step further and approach some of these people and ask them if what we guessed was true or not. First, the people are surprised that someone was watching them and then even more surprised that we looked into them and their lives. Private lives become public when we leave the house.
Imagine my surprise one day when someone came up to me and said, "Do I know you?" "Aren't you so and so?" It's been said that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. He didn't know me but he had seen me. This happens to a lot of people. The folks in Jesus' day took note and watched him like a hawk. They looked into his life with the knowledge they had about his childhood, parents, and siblings. They saw both what they couldn't fathom and what they refused to believe. These same people who had great knowledge saw to it that what disturbed them was silenced when they killed him. They, the religious authorities, thought this was over. They believed that the threat of their loss of stature and power was gone. They were wrong. How do I know? Because they persecuted the followers of Jesus and do so to this day. If they can't see Jesus in Christians then why would we be persecuted. Jesus said we are blessed when we are persecuted for his sake. Why? Because we are evidence of that which others cannot see. We are evidence of the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus who lives within us. As Paul would later say, "It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives within me." People, you and I, are watching and being watched. People, they and them, are looking and seeing. What are they seeing when they watch us? Are they seeing Jesus?
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