“Big Brother is watching.” The phrase, from George Orwell’s book, 1984, has become a common slogan in the modern age, and it always has a negative connotation. We don’t want to be watched because we don’t want to be judged. We don’t want to be judged because we know we are guilty. But the scripture is clear—God watches and there is nothing he misses.

Jesus’ compassionate assessment of the people he encountered was that they were “confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” To multiply the number of people reached during his ministry on earth, he delegated twelve of his closest followers to engage in spiritual work similar to his own.

When Jesus sent his disciples out on their ministry assignment, he knew that they would be challenged. Knowing that disagreeable surprises can unsettle us, Jesus gave them an idea of what they would face and how to deal with it. When they went out to preach in the villages, they’d have to contend with unpleasant situations that Jesus usually handled directly. Thankfully, for them, and for Christians today, Jesus gave some guidance as to how to respond to trouble.

Most of us have not-so-fond memories of some authority figure sitting us down to explain “the way it is.” We’d rather live in our own fantasy than in what we see as someone else’s reality, but Jesus has unique authority when he speaks of reality. Before he sent his disciples out on their first ministry assignment, he gave them (and us) a reality check. Some of what he told his disciples doesn’t fit well with the fantasies by which people prefer to live.

Skeletons left in our closets will ultimately haunt us. Our good deeds and benevolence will not erase the giants of our unfinished messes.

Twenty years after deceiving his father Isaac, Jacob was about to come face to face with his brother Esau from whom he had robbed the family blessing.

We crave God’s blessings. It is difficult to realize that some of God’s greatest blessings come through the “changing of our character” rather than the “changing of circumstances.”

That is what occurred between God and Jacob. A strange event took place during the night before Jacob was to meet with Esau, the brother whom he had so viciously hurt twenty years before.

Here it is again: that tight-rope balance on the hard-edge of human reality. Living in our very broken world full of injustice, unfairness and violence while at the same time daring to believe in God who sees, who hears, who knows and who will bring an eternal justice. But isn’t our real struggle with When will justice come?