Have you ever played “Hidin’ Grayson?”
Perhaps you have played another version of this game.
When my baby boy, Zeke, (now 31) was 3-4 years old, his best friend was Grayson. Grayson’s mom sometimes had Zeke over to their house for play days. One of their favorite games was Hide-and-Seek.
One day, as the game was about to begin, Grayson looked at his mom and asked her, “Are we ever going to play Hidin’ Grayson?”
It was at that point she determined that Grayson had known the game as “Hidin’ Zeke.”
Little kids are so much fun!
Fast forward a quarter-century or so and I often play hide-and-seek with my grandchildren. It’s a hoot to watch how they “hide” and for me to walk around “seeking” them while I can see them the whole time.
And, of course, I can hide in some of the most obvious places and still observe them seeking.
This thought occurred to me today in light of some of the responses I’ve heard to some of the unspeakable horrors that highlight our news each day.
“Our problem is that we’ve removed God [meaning the Bible and prayer] from our schools and society.”
Now, to be clear, I’m a follower of Jesus and I am very much in favor of reading and studying the Bible and spending time conversing with God in prayer.
But we miss the point if we think we pitiful humans have the ability to remove the God of the Universe from anywhere!
These words from Eugene Peterson really spoke to me this morning:
“The central item in the religious life isn’t my knowledge of God but his knowledge of me. Not my faltering search for God but his search for me. God’s aggressive search for us and his exhaustive knowledge of us have resulted in an existence in which there is no place we can go where God is absent. We can take the Bible out of the hotel room, take prayer from the schoolroom, take the Ten Commandments out of the courtroom, and we haven’t diminished his presence in any of those places. We can take his name off the coins, and he is no less a present reality than before, We can deny him, we can curse him, we can ignore him, and he is still intimately acquainted with all our ways, still tenderly holding us in his love, still faithfully extending his mercy to us, and still generously offering us his grace.”
If we ever think God is missing or hiding, it’s because we—like my grandchildren—simply don’t have the capacity to see Him. Our perspective is too limited. Our vision is too narrow.
We have not yet learned enough or matured enough spiritually to see Him and to see how He is aware of and involved in our everyday experiences.
Therefore when bad things happen, we assume his absence, unconcern, or inability rather than seeking His wisdom and working in cooperation with Him to respond to bad things in good ways.
If we are really seeking Him wholeheartedly, we will find Him.
Be amazing today, my friend.
