Hide and Seek

We’ve all enjoyed a game of hide and seek at one time or another.

How long since you’ve played? I still find it great fun.

It’s such a laugh to play with small children, who think that if they can’t see you, then you can’t see them. As long as their face is hidden, even if just behind a pair of tiny hands, they think that they can’t be discovered. Usually they’re giggling at the same time!

As children get older, they understand a little better the concept of hiding, and due to their small frame are able to hide away in some pretty hard to discover places. It’s amazing though that when they find a great hiding spot, often they’ll return to that exact same spot, time after time, making them easy to discover.

Then over time they become really good, puzzling even the cleverest adult. But the longer it takes for them to be found, the more they begin to worry that they might never be found, and I’ve often had my kids reveal themselves because they thought I had stopped looking for them and they might have been stuck there forever.

As an adult I come up with some great hiding spots, only to discover that my belly is sticking out, or my feet, or my hair, and I’m easily detected. Or that cupboard I used to be able to fit in has somehow shrunk, and the door is left ajar – a tell-tale sign that I’m in there.

Did you know that hide and seek is one of the earliest activities of man recorded in the Bible?

Early on in Genesis we have Adam and Eve, who have broken the rules by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, and, knowing they’ve done the wrong thing, they try to hide from God among the trees in the Garden of Eden. God calls out “where are you?” and like little kids inexperienced at the hide and seek game, Adam calls back – “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

How amusing that they thought they could hide from God.

How sad that ever since, people have felt they have been able to hide their ‘sinful’ behaviors.

The writer of Psalm 139 knew there was no hiding from an all-seeing, all-knowing God, declaring ‘Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? To be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go underground, you’re there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, you’d find me in a minute – you’re already there waiting!’

You can’t play hide and seek with God. God always finds you!

But the great news is that God always forgives you.

Better to bring it all out in the open, to confess our failings, and to receive the wonderful gift of divine forgiveness. Don’t be a hider. Be a seeker.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington