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When our girl graduated from Nursing School her favorite professor gave her class of new nurses as well as those gathered to celebrate one last word of instruction.
Without pomp or circumstance, this beloved teacher offered this final nugget of golden advice:

“Always do the right thing. Especially when no one is looking.”

My girl has always had a gritty work ethic. By nine years old, she was an entrepreneur grinding grain, baking bread, and delivering loaves by lawnmower—all of this to purchase and board a horse, and then buy a horse trailer. Her cinnamon roll fundraiser paid for her English saddle. In junior high, she graded, with honesty, some of her own homework. Because she’s the cheery personality type, she placed celebratory stickers on her A+ work. She’s a smart, hardworking, beautiful woman of integrity.

Several years down the road of Labor and Delivery nursing, my girl had an enormous amount of responsibility that sometimes settled squarely on her shoulders. In one memorable post-delivery situation, she was left at the helm alone in what appeared to be the wake of a textbook delivery—only it wasn’t. My wise and savvy nurse-girl made a series of lightning-fast decisions that quite literally saved a new mama’s life.
No one was looking, and she did many right things.

Recently, I was reminded of that nursing instructor’s wise advice.
I pushed cooling circles of cake fresh from the oven way deep on the counter and covered them with a light tea towel. Our pup Phoebe “never” reaches up to get things off the counter, and though she is “the best dog ever,” I thought it might be prudent to put the deliciously wafting smell of cake farther out of her reach.

I ran upstairs momentarily, but by the time I came back to the kitchen, the tea towel and cooling rack were dangling precariously over the edge of the counter. And approximately one-third of one of the circles of cake was missing, with teeth marks along the missing edge. When the coast was clear and no one was looking, my dog did “the wrong” thing. My mini sheepadoodle ate a chunk of cake when no one was looking.

As much as I love the advice given from the graduation stage in Springfield, Missouri, there is one fundamental problem with this (great) advice.

Someone is always looking.

The Maker of the universe, the Creator of all things, including babies and puppies, never takes His eyes off us. He knows all. He sees all.

Do the right thing when no one is looking. Because God sees—always, Someone is looking.