Whenever I did something wrong as a little girl, I thought I had a surefire way of escaping my parents.

I would hide behind a large potted plant we had and close my eyes.

Somehow, I thought that my parents wouldn’t be able to see me if I did this. Unfortunately for me, their eyesight was a bit better than I’d bargained on.

If you look at the natural world, you’ll find that I’m not the only one who often thinks they can’t be seen.

Take the blue tang fish, made famous by its cartoon equivalent in the Pixar movies “Finding Nemo” and “Finding Dory.”

Like a few other reef fish, this aquatic animal is blue and yellow. To other fish and to its predators, the blue tang is perfectly camouflaged. To them, its yellow markings seem to disappear against similarly coloured corals, and its blue body blends in with the shade of the water.

There’s only one problem:

To snorkelling humans, the blue tang sticks out like a sore thumb. Far from being camouflaged, this fish’s dramatic colours are incredibly conspicuous to our eyes. Why is that?

It’s because our eyesight is very different from that of undersea creatures. The particular trio of cones in human vision is especially good at discriminating blues and yellows.

So what is hidden to other fish is glaringly obvious to us.

I think God’s “eyesight” works in a similar fashion.

We sometimes think our sins “blend in” to our lives and are camouflaged from God’s sight. We may even think that we’ve gotten away with our misdeeds.

But God’s vision is quite different from ours. Our sins are incredibly conspicuous to a holy God.

“My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.” (Jeremiah 16:17)

God sees all our deeds and knows all our thoughts. It’s folly to think that He doesn’t notice our sins.

God’s laser vision is so penetrating that He can even see the sins that we don’t realize we’ve committed.

“But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.” (Psalm 19:12)

Sooner or later, God will shine a spotlight on our sins. They must be accounted for one way or another.

“For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:14)

So what should we do?

We should accept Christ’s atoning work on the Cross as the payment for our sins. If we do that, then our sins been taken care of: they’re no longer held against us. When we belong to Christ, we become as righteous as He is in God’s eyes.

And when we do sin in future (and we’re bound to), we should come immediately before God and repent. He promises to forgive us and restore us to a right relationship with Him.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

How wonderful it is that because of what Jesus did for us at the Cross, we don’t need to try to hide from God.

He isn’t fooled by camouflage anyway!

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Hebrews 4:13

© 2023 Lori J. Cartmell. All rights reserved.