Hide and Seek

We’ve been playing a lot of hide and seek at my house lately.  My four-year old son Ryan insists on playing every night at bedtime.  While I’m downstairs getting his bedtime snack, he hides.  When I come back to his room, I have to find him.  The thing is, he’s always in the same hiding spot – under his bed.  Yet, I still have to play the game and pretend to look in every nook and cranny for him.  Ultimately, though, he just wants to be found.  And the finding is the best part of the game.  The part where I’m greeted with his biggest smile, little boy giggles and a huge hug.

I thought how much is this game like our experience of faith?  At one time we found God and found something amazing in Him.  Yet, as life takes over, we begin to drift.  As if we’ve allowed God to hide out under our bed and we’ve forgotten He’s there.  How many times do you find yourself rediscovering your faith?  Or find yourself back in your dark places, asking where is God?

I was writing one morning about the importance of prayer, particularly during the trials of life.  How when we’re faced with a trial we should pray about it daily.  We should bring God into our discussions and allow Him to guide us through the trial.  It was material I’ve been studying and writing about for months so I thought I’d committed it to heart and practice.  Only, when I looked down at the page and reread the words, I realized with shock that I had not been praying about my latest crisis.  I had gotten caught up in it and focused myself on ‘fix-it’ mode instead of prayer.

It was a reminder of how intentional we have to be with our faith.  How much we have to practice at changing our default reactions.  Just because we ‘found’ God today doesn’t mean we ever stop seeking Him.  It is so easy to get swept away in the day-to-day of our human lives and lose sight of what it is we found.  So easy to fall back into old habits of self-reliance.

Just like I play hide and seek with Ryan every night, I’m reminded that I also need to seek God every day.

And, like Ryan always hiding in the same place under his bed, God is never really hiding from us either.  He’s right there, waiting for us to seek Him.  He desperately wants to be found, but still wants us to seek.  He wants us to keep looking for him, to keep seeking to be closer to Him.  He wants us to draw nearer so that we come to rely on Him more.

I don’t know about you, but I think the finding is the best part of seeking God.  I may not get a 4 year old’s giggle from God, but I do get peace, comfort, love, hope, guidance.

I’m going to use our nightly hide and seek game as a reminder to ask did I seek God today.  Did I pray today?  Did I spend time with God today?  Did I see God’s glory in something today?  Did I discover something new about God today?

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”  Matthew 7:7-8