Where Can I Hide?
Good Morning Friends,
Growing up in Southern Illinois I had a Beagle and that dog could smell out a rabbit or quail three miles away. The dog got me to wonder about why people hide from God. For God can certainly smell us out. I wonder at and about people a lot, as much if not more so than the nature of this world. I marvel that we have been fearfully and wonderfully made. When I encounter others on the journey I observe them and try to discern their spirit and experiences, then I look them in the eyes and smile involuntarily as a sign of comfort and warmth. Here as I look into another’s eyes I somehow understand that if I speak, God already knew the words before they were on my tongue. At the moment of our conceptions and births we have no memories but we do nevertheless have the assurance that, from those moments on, God is gloriously omnipresent in our lives with a sight and smell into our very being…a vision and sense that is unsurpassed. Friends, when it comes to God we are never alone. So it is pointless to play hide and seek with God. Where Can I Hide?
Scripture: O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them–they are more than the sand; I come to the end–I am still with you.
Psalm 139:1-18 (NRSV)
But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:9 (NRSV)
Message: It is not a good thing to hide from God. After the Adam took a bite of the apple God call to him in the garden,” Where are you?” God of course knew exactly where Adam was emotionally, relationally, spiritually and physically. But in today’s devotional we should take that call more personally because the message is about the people hiding in the pews as well. What a tragedy it is to have that lost potential. It is an Army that has never gone to war, the Body of Christ with severed parts. This is truly a modern day tragedy of untapped gifts waiting to be uncrated and used for God’s intended purposes. We are called to be taking on the challenge, fighting the good fight and answering God’s call. Sure we all want personal protection from the evil in this world. We want to believe that God cares about each of us. So we search ourselves and others for glimpses of Him even as He searches us. We act and speak, as we believe, in all sincerity, yet are often misinterpreted or misjudged by those besieged…those shut off. Perhaps it is too painful to wait the night for the wings of dawn if one has made their bed in Sheol. But today’s message cries out for all those who have been ensnared by loneliness…the kind of loneliness Adam felt that day in the garden. Today’s message is that even as we are seeking a release from our loneliness, God is seeking us all out. Here we discover there is merit in learning a great deal about God but there is personal salvation in being willing to commit our lives to follow His will…to experience God. We have no right to demand it of God and yet He offers to be on close and intimate terms with us. Amazingly we are invited into a relationship where God knows us and not just about us. He knows how the foundations of the earth were laid and knows how everything happens. He knows you and He knows me. He understands our thoughts and thoroughly comprehends all our actions, strengths, weaknesses and habits. He has searched us so together we might celebrate the joy of God’s gift of life. Then when we focus on God in the celebration we must conclude that we are not accidents…we all have value placed in us by our creator….we all have worth especially when we glorify God, for in that experience we can never feel alone.
Pray with praise that we rejoice in the gift of life. Pray that we realize we have been woven together into a fabric of community to show forth God’s love. Pray we never try to hide from God and His penetrating look. Pray we keep His commandments. Pray we realize that pulling the blankets over our heads does not make us safe. Pray we are looking in the right direction. Pray we feel the penetrating gaze of God but also his love. Pray that in God’s grace and in our repentance we get His wink of approval that he still loves us and we too are to love each other. Pray we answer the call to use our gifts to build up the Body of Christ and serve and serve but not hide.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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