Hide and Seek

One of my favorite games to play as a kid was “hide and seek” especially outside in the warm late spring and summer Georgia evenings.  Today, I always get a charge when I hear my grandkids enjoy the very same game.  “5-10-15-20…ready or not here I come!”  It is a time-tested game that kids of all ages enjoy.

“Hide and seek” are powerful words in the spiritual realm.  Psalm 119:11 is a great verse that all Christ-followers need to memorize, meditate on, and have available to apply when you are in periods of spiritual battle. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”  God’s Word is your offensive weapon as a believer. 

Just days before He guided Joshua to lead His people into the Promise Land, God commanded him to “Be strong and very courageous carefully obeying all the law (God’s Word) my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go” Joshua 1:7.  Keep God’s Word hidden (treasured) in your heart so that you can walk “strongly and courageously.”

Hiding Him in your heart creates intimacy between you and your God.  Psalm 17:8 says it this way, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.”  What a beautiful, securing commitment from your Lord!

“In the shelter of your presence you hide them from all human intrigues; you keep them safe in your dwelling from accusing tongues” (Psalm 32:20).  “Rescue me from my enemies, Lord, for I hide myself in you” (Psalm 143:9).  In His presence, God hides and keeps us safe.

Let’s move from “hide” to “seek”.  God wants you to seek Him.  Matthew 6:25-27 forewarns us, “²⁵ Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”  We too often fixate on temporal things as we live.  Jesus cautions us to stop fretting and challenges us to turn our eyes toward God always. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).  “I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands” Psalm 119:10.

God explains in Jeremiah 23:24 that He cannot hide in a place where He cannot be sought and found.  “Once genuinely sought, can I (God) hide in a place that I cannot be found?’ declares the Lord. ‘I (God) fill up heaven and earth.’ declares the Lord.”

In spiritual “hide and seek”, meditate on His Word and seek his presence. He can be found.