The psalmist said, “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” (Psalm 130:3). Nothing could be plainer. It will strike anyone who has run into a mere fault-finding mortal as incontrovertible. For the average fault-finder is insufferable in spite of being finite. He weighs you down to the point where you are quite certain you can’t carry on. He does so by spotting errors while not being that good at spotting them. His finite eyes can only see so far. His blurry vision cannot see just how splotchy the splotches are. But he does see quite enough. And this is why you cannot stand by him long.

If this is so, how would it be if the All-Seeing God always kept an eye out for your deformities? “If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses?” (Jeremiah 12:5) Man looks at the skin and bones, but the Almighty looks inside them. What would happen if, every time He gazed upon your poor soul, He made sure to number your failures? You would collapse before He got to double digits, and He would get to them the moment He looked. Good thing He doesn’t run that kind of math.