The worst game of hide and seek

I have a pre-school aged daughter and her favourite game is ‘hide and seek’. She wants to play it with me every day but, if I’m honest, she’s not very good at it.

She always hides in the same place (behind the big cushion on the settee)

She’s always audible (giggling loudly every time I search in the wrong place)

She’s always slightly visible (one of her limbs or the top of her head sticks out from behind the cushion)

The game always ends in the same way. I lift the cushion from on top of her and she squeals with delight, thinking it hilarious that I’d not known she was there all the time.

For her it’s a fun game even though she’s not following the rules as we know them.

But maybe I'm looking at it all wrong. Maybe it’s not that she's not very good at Hide and seek, but me who doesn’t realise she’s playing an entirely different game.

Perhaps she’s not playing Hide and Seek, she's actually playing Seek and Find.

She doesn’t want to hide from me. She is deliberately making herself audible and visible to me. For her the pleasure is in watching me search and the highlight of the game is being found by me.

This morning’s Old Testament reading made me think about how often we can misunderstand what God is doing and what He is like.

King Asa and the people of Judah and Benjamin were a little bit confused about what was going on so God spells out something about His character to them. He tells them that He, like my daughter, isn’t playing our game of hide and seek. He plays seek and find.

He isn’t hiding from them, even though the people had at times hidden from Him and sought other gods. God isn’t hiding. He wants to be sought and wants to be found.

In the text we read that King Asa had already started the work of trying to turn his kingdom back towards God, tearing down the idols and altars to false gods that they had abandoned the true God for. Things seemed to be going well for them until suddenly a huge army invaded.

Although the invading army were defeated, perhaps the people of Judah and Benjamin were wondering what had happened. Had God abandoned them despite their efforts to seek him?

In response God sends a message: “The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you….Take courage! Your work will be rewarded.”

This encourages King Asa and the people to continue to seek and they are rewarded by finding God and his peace.

Sometimes, like the people in King Asa’s day, we need a little encouragement to continue in our pursuit of God.

God doesn’t hide from us, but sometimes we try to play our own games of hide and seek with Him. I know I can be particularly good at avoiding Him when I don’t want to be convicted about a particular sin or temptation that I’m half-heartedly fighting against.

Sometimes we can hide behind our family or work duties, our assignments and commitments, or the need to binge-watch a particularly gripping series on Netflix as an excuse for not seeking an encounter with God wholeheartedly.

At other times we may be dealing with our own invasion of enemy armies: illness and problems in our lives that overwhelm us so much that we question whether God is with us. Where has He gone?

But we can be encouraged today that, when we take time out for retreat and to seek an encounter with God, God has promised that He will be with us while we are here with him.

God is a God of ‘Seek and Find’ not ‘hide-and-seek’. He is right here with us, where He has always been. He is speaking to us through what we will hear and see in our day.

God is here. He’s not hiding. He wants to be found. This is his message to us.

So let’s be encouraged, like King Asa and the people of Judah and Benjamin were. And let’s continue the ongoing, lifelong work of tearing down the obstacles that may sometimes hide God from our view. Today let’s commit to seek him with our whole desire because, whenever we seek, God will be found by us.

2 Chronicles 15: 1-15

The spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. 2 He went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you. 3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law; 4 but when in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. 5 In those times it was not safe for anyone to go or come, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. 6 They were broken in pieces, nation against nation and city against city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. 7 But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

8 When Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded,[a] he took courage, and put away the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns that he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the Lord.[b] 9 He gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing as aliens with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him. 10 They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. 11 They sacrificed to the Lord on that day, from the booty that they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.

12 They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and with all their soul. 13 Whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. 14 They took an oath to the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with horns. 15 All Judah rejoiced over the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.