Playing Hide and Seek

Hide and seek is probably a game that has been played by children and adults for as long as
there have been children and adults. I have played it in some unusual places, one being in an orchard where one could climb from tree to tree over several acres and never touch the ground. It's generally a safe and sweet game to play.

The problem is that we, as humans, play a dangerous version of this game with God. You see, we hide from God for the most part because we do not want Him to find us. Our natural inclination is to run the other way because, quite frankly, WE want to be God. We want to sail our own ship, to do what we want to do and to avoid surrendering our 'freedom' to a creator God who might try to bring us in line. Rich Mullins sang that..'surrender don't come natural to me.' He was so very correct.

God, on the other hand, seeks us out. No matter where we stand on the whole predestination issue, there has to be an action initiated by God, a reaching out and tapping us on our shoulders, before any progress can be made in reconciliation with a Holy God who hates
sin. Does He reach out to all people? That's a question, one of many, to which we simply do not have an answer; yet, anyone who has been regenerated in the heart, who has been saved into the light from the darkness of sin, has been saved by the grace of a God who loves them and desires a relationship with them.

We love to hide and He loves to seek. We want and need to lose this game, and it's a game whose ramifications are eternal. We need to pull down the walls, remove the defense mechanisms open our hearts and 'listen' for His wooing. The problem, one more time, is that this is not the normal way we act or react. 

If we have been freed from the slavery of sin, it becomes our job to soften those around us that are not saved. Maybe it's simply smiling and initiating conversation, sharing a good book or sermon or welcoming someone to church. We want to welcome them to be unnatural. We want to throw a pebble in the pond and start the ripples, we want them to meet a God that beckons them with love.

God is waiting and reaching out because He IS an awesome God!