Life Coaching: Hide And Seek With God

Jeremiah 29:13-14 When you seek me, you will find me, provided you seek for me wholeheartedly; and I will let you find me,’ says Adonai. Complete Jewish Translation.

This verse made me cry this morning. When God said, “I will let you find me,” I just couldn’t help myself. It made me remember all the times I played hide-and-seek with my daughter, and with my grandson. As parents (and grandparents), I would hide with one of two purposes: 1) I would hide in an obvious spot so they would be certain to find me; or 2) I would hide somewhere they wouldn’t think of and sneak back to “home” before they found me. They hated the later, but it fostered creative thinking on their part. It made them think outside the box, and the next time we played, that was the place they looked first (which kinda fostered creative thinking on my part as to where was I gonna hide next). 

Our relationship with God is exactly like that. As a parent, He hides where He is easily found  because He WANTS us to find Him. And, at times, we have to search Him out, not necessarily because He’s moved, but because we do. 

God  doesn’t have to let us find Him. He could easily conceal Himself for eternity if He so desired.  But He LETS us find Him because He WANTS TO BE FOUND! He likes it. He takes joy when one of His children falls into His arms and says, “Gotcha!” It reveals our desire to seek Him, ask His counsel, and spend time with Him.   The feeling I got when my grandson would say, “I see you, Grammie” was one I will carry with me for the rest of my life. It was wonderful. 

And those times when God is a little more difficult to find? We have to keep looking. We have to search Him out. We have to patiently and prayerfully hunt until we find. And we will definitely find. Because God has not moved. He’s right at home base. We sometimes can’t see Him because of our own blindness or because He wants us to learn to be a better seeker. My grandson is a much better searcher than he used to be.  Of course, now that he’s a grand total of eight years old, he thinks he’s too old for hide-and-seek. But he’s apparently not too old to hide from his Grammie and jump out at her from behind a door, thereby scaring said Grammie half to death...But even this small, playful act reflects a desire to be found! How boring it would be if he hid in a closet for an hour, waiting for me to walk by, and I just sat on the couch reading a book. No, he knows I’m gonna start hunting for him pretty soon, and that’s what motivates him to get behind the door and pounce on me as I walk by. 

When we are desperately searching for answers from God, we will find Him. We may not understand the “why” but we can always find the “Who.” There is no instance recorded in the Bible of someone searching for God and coming away empty handed. None. And neither will we, if we ask, seek, and knock.