When my son was very small we used to play hide & seek. i would hide my eyes and count to ten, very slowly, so he would have time to hide. i would hear him laughing and giggling as he hid himself. It was a game he really loved as a child. Funny, i always knew exactly where he was… i could hear him breathing from across the room. i would call his name out as if i was completely mystified as to where he was, walking around and pretending i couldn’t figure it out. (chuckle) And all along, i could totally see his feet sticking out from behind the couch, or i could see him watching me from the cracked-open closet door.
i think, these days, we are hiding from God, but it’s not a child’s game, and there’s no laughing and giggling to it all anymore.
Gen3:8-10, “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Three significant words to take note of there: afraid, naked, and the word for hiding.
Why did they hide, and so i must ask, why do we hide?
When we’re hiding, we’ll do almost anything to keep from being honest. i’ve often thought fear and dread were the close friends of hiding, especially when we’re on the outs with God, family, or friends. i think it would be fair to say, most of the things we hide about are actually pretty small most of the time, but for whatever our reasons are, rightly so or not, we feel the need to wear a mask, making ourselves to appear as someone other than who we are, as if being ourselves isn’t ok.
Adam and Eve were the first to be afraid and the first to hide from God, and we the people, have been being afraid and hiding ever since. They heard God, were afraid, recognized their condition, and took action on it by hiding. i wonder how things would have been different for us all if Adam and Eve had simply confessed their wrong to God, on the spot? Truthfully, always hiding your thoughts and motives is a LOT of mental gymnastics, but the longer you do it, the more the habit of hiding gets easier until one-day hiding comes easy to you and it is actually the standard, rather than being honest.
Isn’t it amazing how simply being honest and turning away from our wrong is – compared to all the work we put into deflecting, defending, justifying, or arguing about who’s right? It seems to me being honest, transparent, and accountable is much easier, that is, unless we feel we’ve got something to lose, and the risk of honesty is too great somehow. We are afraid, more often than not, and on some level, we recognize our condition… we hide, swearing to everyone nothing is as it appears, … “it’s all just a misunderstanding”, “Nothing is like you think”, “It’s not really that way”, or playing our victim card… putting it all back on everyone else, “Oh, you’re so mean and judgmental, besides who are you to tell me anything?”
We say we’re being honest and transparent, maybe even swearing an oath that what we say is the truth. You know, when anyone starts swearing an oath as to their honesty and accountability, i find myself automatically being suspicious. It is a truth though, “An oath is only as good as the person behind it.”
Most of us love to tell others we live in a culture of honor, i’ve said it myself. But between myself and God, i’ve realized my lack of honesty doesn’t support a culture of honor. Proverbs 15:33 says “The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility.” Maybe poor self-esteem and the challenge of being humble prevents us from the honesty we so desperately need in order to truly live in a culture of honor.
Understanding humility and putting it into action tends to chip away at shame; it also allows honesty to come to the surface. When we’re honest with the Lord, suddenly we find ourselves in a place of freedom, not hiding any longer. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, until we do something about shame, restoration is very difficult.
i’d like to put this in the melting pot of thought: One view of humility means not needing to be more than you are.
Successful people are simply who they are and they don’t try to be more than that. Think of people you’ve worked with who have come into the company with a know-it-all attitude, pretending to be more than they were. Are they still there? Often not. Were they liked? Probably not.
Even though we may be enormously successful, we must accept our failures and mistakes, and even see them as simply part of the process of becoming successful. We should not be surprised by mistakes we or others make.
Within our society there are two very common fears which have gripped people so deeply, that they are often paralyzed to the point of not even expressing themselves, hiding themselves away, never speaking out or standing up to be counted. One is the fear of failure or of being wrong, the other is the fear of being contrary, being in opposition, or more easily expressed as a fear of conflict. We really must accept ourselves as wearing flesh and bone, and that we are human; we must learn to forgive ourselves and go on, not being bound to this earth, but bound to Jesus, seeing ourselves as advancing in faith.
i’d like to stop my hiding ways. God is not hidden, we are the ones who are hidden. i think we’ve hidden ourselves so well we can’t even find ourselves anymore. Isaiah 49:9 has a phrase that jumps out at me, it is “show yourselves”. Come out, come out, wherever you are! That is “show yourselves” as in being honest and transparent.
Like little children who are ashamed of our actions and intentions, we hide from God, who is no longer angry with us but wants us to return to His embrace, to reconcile with Him. God doesn’t want us to just simply change our minds and keep doing what we’re doing, whatever it is that we’re so occupied with, but to drop our preoccupation with ourselves and the world, receiving the restitution and restoration worked by the Blood of Jesus, who loves us with an everlasting love.
If any of us are ashamed of our history, or even our present, God is not angry with us. It was prophesied by Isaiah, that at the sacrifice of God’s son, Jesus, on Calvary, all God’s wrath will be poured out on Jesus, and God is not angry with us any longer. Isaiah 54:8-10 “With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,” Says the Lord, your Redeemer. 9 “For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; For as I have sworn That the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, So have I sworn That I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. 10 For the mountains shall depart And the hills be removed, But My kindness shall not depart from you…”
Hell will do everything in its power to keep those of us with “stuff to hide” continuing to hide. If the Lord has forgiven you your past, and if it is the truth in Psalm 103:12, where it says, “… as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”, then who is it which continues to remind us of all the things we ever did wrong? If it’s not God, and it’s not you, then who does that leave? The Lord didn’t ask us to hang our dirty laundry out for everyone to gawk at, but He did say “Come unto me you who are burdened and heavy laden”, meaning to quit hiding and lay your burden down.
God is not hidden from us, He is not carrying a big whip looking to teach us a cruel lesson, that just seems to be a common church misperception of the Heart of the Father. When we speak of discipline, the Lord loves us and the discipline has nothing to do with hot irons, being put on the rack and tortured for days. In Mark 5 and Luke 8 the demons who possessed the man of Gadara insinuated that Jesus was cruel and was going to torture them. That is not the heart of the Lord. Jesus was there to deliver the possessed man, not to mess around arguing with unclean spirits. i have marveled at people who feel they must dialog with unclean spirits, asking their names and how many there are before casting them out. Jesus did not ask the unclean spirit its name, nor did He ask how many were present, He asked the man the question. i’ve watched some of the most bizarre rituals some Christians go through dealing with someone possessed, and if you think there’s no such thing as possessed people around, spend some time among the real down-and-out homeless or go to prison… it will become quite evident. Remember, the heart of the Lord is love. When we come to Him and cease our hiding, being honest and open with God, He will never disgracefully uncover us, He will never rat us out by whispering our secrets to other people. There are those amongst us who seem to feel it is their job to expose sin in the church. That is NOT what the Lord called us to. Either way, hiding inspires secrets, and secrets make fences, and the more we hide, the more we hide, but it’s not like God is not able to see through our defenses. It’s not that the Lord doesn’t see our hidden things, but more, by His love, He influences us to expose our own dark secrets. He wants our honesty and transparency to be our idea.
Like any Father, the Lord carries real concerns for our welfare, but He does not come at us with a hurricane, storm-cloud posture of tooth-gritting rage, and ground-shaking judgment. Where do you think we have gotten the idea God is just waiting to strike us down, laughing as we are wounded, thrilling to watch us run on a hamster’s wheel. His heart is for us to stop hiding, humble ourselves, be honest, and reconcile with Him.
He is more than willing to balance our books, in fact, He’s already done the work, it is finished, we just have to believe on the name of Jesus, and allow Him to perfect in each of us what He started. Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Come out, come out, wherever you are. It’s not like God, whose eye nothing escapes from, does not see us. You know those things you do in the dark when you think no one sees? Well… let’s not kid ourselves…God sees…we might as well be honest with Him. You know one day, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. At that point, it won’t be a request, it will be a requirement.
God is not hidden. We are. We were hiding in the Garden of Eden, and we are still hiding today. The Lord is bidding us to come out of hiding, to humble ourselves and be honest, to throw open the doors of our heart and tear down our fences. Christ is visible and willing to forgive us all our darkest secrets. We’ve simply got to be willing to come out of our hiding places. Come out, come out, wherever you are. You may say, “One day i’ll do just that!” How about today being your “One day”? God is good for His promises, come out from hiding.
In 1868 Frances Crosby wrote, “Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast; There by His love o’ershaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest. Hark! ’tis the voice of angels Borne in a song to me, Over the fields of glory, Over the jasper sea. Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast; There by His love o’ershaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest.”
If you’ll surrender your hiding ways, you will be safe in Jesus, i promise you it is true.
As you go your way to find a little rest for your soul this evening, let hiding be a thing of the past. Our days of hiding are over. The Love of God bids us to come out and be honest and transparent. God knows right where you are, and He’s not angry any more, so give up. Drive safely, and let God’s wisdom guide you home.