God is watching...

I've been intrigued this morning with the thought that God is watching us...
(No, not that horrible Bette Midler song from the early 90's!)


I grew up in a fairly conservative, Christian home, where my parents instilled in me the idea/belief that God saw everything and was watching me.
As a child it was great motivation to behave.  (...of course I tried to hide, when there was something particularly enticing that I knew was wrong, but God had this way of ratting me out to Mom and Dad.)
In my pre-teen years, I began to understand that God indeed was watching, but it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit, that brought conviction to my heart and the subsequent remorse for the transgressions I committed.


The problem is that, like most of us who grew up with those ideals, the thought of God watching us and the conviction it brought to do "good things", waned with time.
It's not that I didn't believe that God was watching, it's that the repercussions for my "naughty" behavior, had less immediate bearing on my day to day life.


(Mom and Dad aren't there to be the "hand of God" on my backside.)


Therein lies the conundrum...  at what point did we/I become so calloused, desensitized, or "sophisticated" that we ceased to recognize the "voice" of the Holy Spirit in our lives?  
It's not like he stopped speaking...


I think the problem lies in our ability, or lack thereof, to recognize when God has "punished" us.
It's not that he's going to go all, Old Testament on us and cause the ground to open up and swallow us whole... or punish us in a traditional sense of the word...
However, there are consequences for disobedience.
So, when God's favor and the blessing of his presence is lacking, do we chalk it up to circumstance and the "trials" of life, instead of our own poor decisions?


Now, quickly before you chew me up and spit me out... I do not claim to sit in the seat of judgment as the one who has no sin, but it is interesting to make a comparison of life while living in obedience to God and life while living in disobedience to God.
The evidence kind of speaks for itself...