What was your favorite childhood game?

Hide and Seek tops my list. Talk about adrenaline rush; hiders frantically  scattering as the seeker shouts   “one, two, three,… ten; ready or not, here I come!”

Stifling nervous giggles with hand over mouth, I’d slip behind a tree, or scurry inside and nestle tight between winter coats in the front closet. The goal of course, was to elude the seeker. The goal was to hide well.

As women, isn’t it true we’ve done more hiding than seeking? I think you’d agree, we’ve learned to hide things well.

We’ve become quite good at hiding what we dare not expose; we stuff it in closets; sweep it under rugs; throw slip-covers over it. We hide it from others, and try to hide it from God.

The baggage isn’t always the kind we can slap a luggage tag on; hurt, shame, addiction, worry, debt, abuse, pride…  As we know in Hide and Seek, either we’re hiding or we’re seeking; but what if we could do both?

God knows we are hiding; when we seek Him, He becomes our hiding place. Instead of hiding from Him, we can hide in Him.    Tweet that

“You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.” Psalm 32:7

In Jeremiah 29:12-13, God guarantees we will find Him when we seek Him with all our heart. He doesn’t say we might find Him; He doesn’t say if we’re good enough we’ll find Him; He says we will find Him.

He’s not the one hiding, He’s right there. He’s right here.

“Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12-13

Call, Pray, Seek, Search, Find. The difference is “pray,” it’s the step we leave out in the game Hide and Seek.

So here I am, all grown up and back in the closet; only this time I’m not hiding, I’m seeking.  If I giggle it’s not because I’m afraid of being found; it’s because I once was lost, but now I’m found. You can be too.

Go giggle in the closet.