This I learned when someone rushed into the kitchen and reported that my conversation with someone else was being broadcast throughout the auditorium.

My first reaction was to turn off the microphone transmitter.

My second reaction was to think back over what I had said, in the hope that I had not said anything inappropriate for public airing. (Thankfully, I had not.)

A third reaction was to wonder why I am more concerned about what may be broadcast from my lips to others than what is broadcast to God Almighty. Turning off the microphone may prevent others from hearing what I say. But nothing prevents the omnipresent and omniscient God from hearing.

We nevertheless say things in secret we know we should not say. Do we deceive ourselves into thinking He does not hear? Or are we so callous as to fear not if He does hear?

Do we not realize that the things we do and say in secret have a way of becoming exposed to our own shame? Do we not believe God is serious when he warns us to “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23)? He means it when he warns us to be chaste “even in your thought ..., even in your bedroom; for a bird of the air may carry your voice, and a bird in flight may tell the matter” (Ecclesiastes 10:20; see an example in 2 Kings 6:8-12). (This is perhaps the source of the saying “A little bird told me.”)

Let us all therefore endeavor – as I already have – to live our lives with the constant awareness that God hears every word we say, and that we are accountable for every one of them (Ecclesiastes 12:13f; Matthew 12:36).