Spiritual Hide and Seek

“I feel like God is hiding,” I whispered as my friend sipped her coffee.  I poured out my woes of the week and when I finally allowed her a word, she said to me, “God does not hide from us, we just have to seek Him.”

I thought of that conversation one day as I was playing “hide-and-seek” with my three-year-old daughter.  I hid where she wouldn’t have to look very hard to find me.  I chuckled quietly as she snuck into my room.  She stayed right near the doorway, got up on her little tip-toes, peeked around a little, and then with a quick turn, she ran out of the room.  She had been standing right in front of me. I was in plain sight, but she didn’t see me.  

“We just have to seek Him.” 

Sometimes it seems I treat my spiritual life as a game of hide-and-seek, only in this game, I’m the three-year-old!  I look around my room or my life, hoping God will make Himself visible to me, yet I don’t actually seek Him.  I get up on my tip-toes and peek around, “Maybe He’s hiding in this game,” “Maybe He’s hiding in this TV show,” “Maybe He’s hiding in these brownies.”

Sometimes it takes a tragedy, diminished health, a broken relationship, or even a pandemic before we even think about God, let alone seek Him. God is not some mystical being tucked away in an obscure corner of the universe. He is right in plain sight. And we don’t have to wait until we’re hurting to seek Him.

Through the prophet, Jeremiah, God tells the Israelites what they will do once their time of captivity in Babylon is finished. 

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” 

(Jeremiah 29:13)

God is waiting for us to turn to Him, to seek Him with all our hearts, and then we will find Him.

When my three-year-old was about to give up the hunt, I sounded our signal call, “ca-caa!”  When she heard me, she came running into the room where I was hiding, but she still had to pause and look around before she saw me.  God calls to me, too.  When I’m wasting time playing a game on my phone, God says, “Come, sit with Me instead.”  When I’m “vegging out” with a mind-numbing show, God says, “Come, sit with Me instead.” When I’m indulging my emotions with a sugary treat, God says, “Come, sit with Me instead.”  

God is not hiding, but we can’t just glance around like a three-year-old during hide-and-seek and expect to find Him. We need to stop. We need to seek Him with all our heart, get into His Word, and allow His Word to come alive.  We can invite the Holy Spirit to give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that will receive and understand. We will find Him when we seek Him with all our hearts.

God is not tucked away in an obscure corner of the universe. 

He is right in plain sight. We just need to seek Him.