Hide & Seek

One of the worse feelings in the world for me is to lose something. I lose lots of things. Sometimes I feel like misplacing everything has made me lose my mind. I often lose my glasses, keys, lists and pens. And looking for these lost items is not fun. Sometimes I find them quickly because I’ve lost them in an obvious place. But it rattles my nerves when weeks go by and I still haven’t recovered my lost item.

It should be pretty easy to find my lost things. I normally misplace my things at home, which makes it more challenging. Home is familiar. I see the things in my house every day, several times a day. But when it’s time to look for something lost, I need to pay attention to things that, by habit, I don’t really pay attention to anymore.

I don’t enjoy the process of looking. I know it’s crazy, but some days I feel like my lost item is playing Hide and Seek with me. I feel that as soon as I get close to where it is, it grows legs and runs somewhere else. Or I feel like it’s sitting right in front of my face. And once I’ve searched and searched and still haven’t found my lost thing, frustration comes and I give up. And I am normally not in a good mood.

I don’t know which is more frustrating, the fact that I’ve lost something or the process of looking for it. But if I had to rate them, it would be the process of looking. I often feel I’ll never find what I’m looking for. That I will be perpetually searching for it. I know it’s somewhere but in order to find it, I have to put some effort into it.

But what if you were looking for God? Not that God is lost, but sometimes, because of our human flesh, He’s hard to spot. And just like losing a lost item, you feel like He’s right in front of your face but you can’t see Him. Talk about frustration. One of the most challenging seasons that Christians have to go through is the season of God’s silence. You feel like no matter what you do, God cannot be found.

And to make matters worse, these seasons seem to come when you are facing something that you desperately need God to respond. You turn your face to heaven and say “God, where are you? I need you.” But there doesn’t seem to be an answer. So you get frustrated and give up. You know He’s there. You just can’t find Him.

But Psalms 105:3 give a very different response to seeking the Lord. It reads, “Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.” (TNIV). Rejoice? Now that takes some shifting in your perspective. Lord, I don’t feel like I can find you but yay! That seems like an oxymoronic statement. How can I rejoice about seeking you when I can’t find you?

We can rejoice in seeking Him because He can be found. Yes, it may take a little time, but if you continue to seek Him, He will reveal Himself to you. God is not playing Hide and Seek with us. He is right in front of our faces. It’s just that our emotions don’t always line up with that truth.

The problem is our idea of the process of seeking Him. In our carnal looking, the goal is to find whatever we are looking for, almost to the point of obsession. But when seeking the Lord, the joy is in seeking Him. The joy is in how the process of seeking Him changes you. When you seek the Lord, especially when it seems He hiding from you, teaches you how to discern what is Him and what is not. It increases your love Him and your desire to be with Him. It makes you passionate about your relationship with Him. And it makes you realize how much you need Him.

So rejoice when you’re seeking the Lord. Celebrate the process of seeking Him. And you will find Him. I promise.

~Terri J. Haynes