Hide and Seek

It amazes me how God can use the simplest things in life to teach me lessons. A couple of weekends ago I was playing Hide and Seek with my nephew and he asked me to "hide" with him. So we went to hide while Uncle Dave was left to seek. We went into my nephews bedroom and it was dark, a perfect spot to hide. We then proceeded to drape a quilt from his bed over our heads so that we couldn't be "found". As our "seekers" came near the bedroom door, and snickers from under our quilts suddenly quieted, the door opened then closed. Our seekers left without finding the searched for "hiders".

As you read this you may think we were very clever "hiders". What you may not know is, my nephew is in a wheel chair that is too big to fit into his closet or any tight or small space, so our hiding was in the middle of his bedroom floor with wheels, feet, and most of my body fully exposed to our seekers. Our seekers were gracious enough to play along for the sake of pure innocence and to hear giggles of delight as he was convinced we had surely fooled them.

I think about the times we play Hide and Seek with God. We think we are being clever by hiding our heads under a quilt of silence or false happiness thinking God cannot see us. We try and hide our sin, our anger, our sorrow. We put on our quilt and act as though we are invisible. We are quiet so as not to be discovered. When in truth God sees us, He knows what we are thinking and feeling. God wants us to come out of hiding. He will not force us to expose ourselves, but will wait patiently to come to Him and be vulnerable to His love, His will. He will be merciful as we struggle to reveal our innermost feelings and fears, sadness and anger and any other emotion that we bury inside. We try to fool the outside world into thinking everything is just "fine" with us. We try to fool ourselves into believing we are just fine without walking daily with God. We begin to believe it ourselves too, except for that still small nagging lack of peace and lack of true happiness.

Just like in the game of Hide and Seek, the seeker calls out to the hiders to expose themselves and come into home base free. Free from being caught and tagged, free without penalty. So too, God calls us back to Him, free from the penalty of sin.

Are you playing Hide and Seek with God? Listen, He's calling! "Olly Olly Oxen Free"