The Greatest Game of Hide and Seek:

There was high energy in my Sunday school class last week.   The six kids that were there were ready to run.   They wanted to jump and play.  It did make sense as it was actually 30 some degrees as opposed to -30 windchill outside.  I too felt the effects of the “heat” and I was also ready to play, getting excited for the days when spring will actually be here.  To counteract some of their energy, we played some old-school games like red light, green light, as well as hide and seek.  

I discovered something, as a 27 year old grown woman, which is that it is not easy to play hide and seek in a room designed for 3-5 year olds.  There was nowhere for me to hide! The best option was behind the door, but still then it was a close squeeze, and I was usually the first one found.  Granted, I wasn’t necessarily trying that hard, but it would still have been nice to have at least somewhere I could have hid to fully play the game.  The kids still enjoyed “finding” me when I was basically in plain sight, so I suppose that is what really matters.  

Sometimes, we may want to hide.  Sometimes we may want to hide from the world and other people, or we may want to hide from God.  We may want to hide from him because we are ashamed.  We are ashamed of some sin we have committed or our thoughts that are constantly running through our heads.  However, God can see us completely.  God can even read what we are thinking.  He can see our thoughts and knows anything we are experiencing.  There is no reason to hide, and there is no reason to even want to hide.  God doesn’t want us to hide, not so he can punish us or treat us badly, but because He loves us and wants to bless us.  

Our church service strengthened this idea when we started talking about Hagar.  Hagar was the servant of Abraham and Sarah.  She was impregnated by Abraham when Sarah gave her to him because she herself could not have children.  (Well she was promised children by God, but she was struggling in her faith to believe in his promises).  Hagar decided to run away after Sarah was cruel to her after she became impregnated.  However, she found she could not run away from God.  God found her in the desert, alone.  He called to her, and he told her to go back to her home with Abraham and Sarah.  She does, and she has been touched and felt blessed by being seen by the Lord.  In Genesis 16:13, it says “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”  Isn’t that awesome?!  She has realized that God sees her.  He sees her for everything that she is and cares about her well-being.  

I imagine that any time we try to hide from God, you know the master and creator of the universe, able to see all things, we are just like me sticking out easily in a preschool classroom.  We can’t hide.  We will always be seen by him who created us and ultimately loves us.  I know there have been times that I try to hide.  I have especially tried to hide when I was struggling with my anxiety and my bouts of anger.   I don’t want to act as though I have anxiety with God.  I want to look as though I have complete faith in God and in his plans.  When in reality, there are times I am just insecure in his plan.   God knows about my anxiety even when I try to hide it, so there really is no reason for me to try to hide this fact from him.  

The best way that I have learned to avoid hiding from God is being completely honest with him.  God doesn’t need us to put on an act in front of him.  He doesn’t need us to be something we are not.  He knows that we are going to have struggles, and we are going to be anxious.  He knows we will get angry, jealous, and even defiant.   Not saying that he is necessarily approving of this behavior, but he would rather us be honest than lying about how we are really feeling.  Being completely vulnerable and honest in my prayer life is the best thing to keep me from wanting to hide from God.  

My challenge for you this week is more serving as a reflection.  My challenge for you is to think through any times where you may want to hide yourself away from God.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be your soul intention, but it ends up happening as your shame or fear starts to take over.  After you have reflected on that, I would highly recommend spending some time in prayer to God to ask him to help you fight against the desire to play hide and seek.  

Last, I want to end with this verse from Psalm 144:3 which says, “O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere motels that you should think about them.”  The Lord does think about you and me.  It is amazing to believe that the Lord, the God of the universe, and creator of everything would spend time thinking about you and me, but he does. This is why we can’t hide from him; he is always thinking about us.