hiding and finding

I was at a birthday party this evening with my four year old daughter. There were several other girls at the party within a few years of her age, and they were enjoying playing with each other.

At one point in the evening, I started counting to ten and the whole clan would giggle and go hide. Of course they can't hide very well at that age, but it doesn't really matter. The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and I enjoyed being able to rustle a few giggles for awhile.

Something during in the course of hide-n-go-seek really stuck with me.

During one of the times I was 'seeking', my daughter and one of the other girls were hiding behind a blanket in a closet. (Of course I heard them giggling and talking before opening the closet door.) I opened the door and said "Nope, no one in here!" and walked away.

I went and hid in another room myself, thinking they would come out of their hiding place eventually and try and find me. After a couple of minutes they hadn't come looking, so I went back to the closet where they were. I opened the door, peeked in and again said "Nope, no one in the closet!"

I wanted to let them think they had really hid well, so well that they had fooled me twice.

I smirked as I started to walk out of the room, thinking about this, when I heard a sound that caught my attention.

I turned around, and my daughter had come out of the closet, crying and upset.

I went over to her, bent down and just waited for her to speak. I knew she would tell me what was on her mind, I didn't have to say or ask anything.

What she said once she composed herself enough to talk floored me. Through her tears she said "I wanted you to find me, Daddy."

I couldn't help but parallel this to us and God.

I think to the times in my life when I've thought I am hiding from God in sin. I have this 'free will' to sin (hide) and I didn't seem to get found or caught. Wow, did God not see me hiding from Him? I fooled and snuck by Him in my sin.

So I keep on, enjoying the world and its pleasures, and here comes God, again. He misses me again, I think.

The what happens? Does the bliss of sin perpetuate?

For awhile I may think so, but over time it brings an unfulfilling emptiness. It never completes. Superficially it's enjoyed at the time, sure, but it does not last.

So just as my daughter hid from me, and initially was thrilled at sneaking me, in the end she wanted me to find her and be with her.


No matter how much surface satisfaction and enjoyment in this world we derive from sin (and we may actually sense this, for a period of time), eventually it fades. And if we walk in sin, Follower or not, we end up craving for something beyond the rotten lie of the world we've lived and believed.

And then we cry.

We may or may not understand our crying. Whether we come to our senses about our sin or not, our souls are saying "I want You to find me, Daddy." What a ripe time to come to Jesus, yet we don't always. I think back to the many, many times in my life when this opportunity for reckoning presented itself.

There are reasons why we wouldn't come to terms with God at this ripe time to come to Him. Two that come to mind are: we don't understand ourselves or what's going on. This happens before the Holy Spirit brings the knowledge of sin into our lives. Or, in cases like my life where the Spirit has clearly given knowledge of sin, we simply won't come to the Cross. It's either fall back into the same sin or find another one to hide in.

This brings to mind a flow of other thoughts for their other:

• the notion (lie) we can hide from God

• the bondage in our freedom

Holy Spirit, fall on us. Hard. Pierce through the scales over our eyes. Let us see our sin for what it is. Let us see the opportunity for reckoning with Father that is before us. Only through You, Holy Spirit, can be found the power to overcome our habits and our bondages. Come, Holy Spirit, break through, so that we can be broken. In Jesus' name, amen.