The Audience of One

"The point is, we can't hide anything from Him and it's silly to try. I don't know if He cares about all the details, like what kind of toothpaste we use, but He certainly cares about spiritual growth and moral issues. If we're doing something right, it doesn't matter if other people disapproved. All that matters is what He thinks. If we're doing something wrong, it doesn't matter if no one else knows, God does. He sees us as we are. He knows everything we're thinking, everything we're doing. I heard someone put it this way: God is the Audience of One. There are no secrets from Him. He's our judge, and His opinion is the only one that ultimately matters." - Ryan Lawrence, Lord Foulgrin's Letters (Randy Alcorn)

How much do I grasp that I am continually before the Audience of One? How often have, in the dark of night or the dark of my own mind, conceived things that are sin, flirted with temptations instead of roundly casting them aside - nay, encouraged them, rolling them around in my mind like a fine piece of dark chocolate in my mouth, savoring the flavor? In all of these times, even as I appear unchanged on the outside, do I understand that I am wide open to God?

Or on the other side - how often do I seek to do things because they will accrue the praises of men rather than the praise of God? How often have I turned aside from the thing I should do because no-one would know, there would be no recognition? How often have I reluctantly served, harboring thoughts of resentment that I was not praised rather than thoughts of rejoicing that I was privileged to serve?

How often do I truly think of the Audience of One? How real is He to me?