Hide And Seek

"Sometimes they hide in plain sight..."

As a child growing up, one of my favorite games was playing hide and seek. My family lived by the Arkansas River in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when we were young children. Nearby, wooded paths and trails ran parallel to the river. My siblings and neighborhood friends spent hours on many days playing a type of hide and seek or capture the enemy, where if caught, we were placed in our lean-to forts made of old limbs until a team member rescued us and set us free. Our laughter and screams of delight echoed through the woods.

Years later, I would play this same game with my children and now with my grandchildren. Only my large yard became the make-believe woods, and the children found creative places to hide throughout my two-story house. It made it fun and challenging.

It’s still a favorite game of my grandchildren to play, and they always say, “Mimi, let’s play hide and seek!” Sometimes I’m challenged to find them, or other times the grands are hiding in plain sight, and I try not to laugh at their innocence and naïveté. And always the countdown for hide and seek begins as I count to ten, then cry out:” Ollie, Ollie, Ump, Ump Free! Ready or not, here I come!”

"We even hide behind a mask..."

As adults, I sometimes think we still play hide and seek, but in a different way. Only it’s not really a game. But still, we have a loving Heavenly Father always in pursuit of us. Just like when Adam and Eve fell into sin, we too fall into sin. And like this couple of old, we too hide.

We hide in fear. We hide in shame. We hide in addictions. We hide in hobbies and activities. We hide behind masks. We hide in busyness and work. We even hide in religious activity or duty. We hide from our true selves and from others. Yet God is always calling our names, and He is always seeking us out. He is in relentless pursuit of us. And He covers all our shame and shortcomings in the cloak of His redemptive love.

And just like the game played growing up with my siblings and friends, we’ve been captured by enemies of our soul that hold us captive in unseen bars or forts of bondage. But He is relentless. He knows every hiding place: the well-disguised ones and the ones in plain sight! And He cries out: “Ready or not! Here I come!”

"And just like a good father, He comes to find you..."

Beloved:

There is no reason to hide anymore. Do you not know that I have come to seek and save you? I have come to set you free! I have covered all your pain, shame, shortcomings, and guilt so that you no longer need to hide. I’m seeking you; come out from every hiding place until you are restored to your true identity, and you can laugh with the freedom of a child again.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:8-9)

 "For thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out." (Ezekiel 34:11)