Hide and Seek

Remember when you used to play this game?  You probably found yourself at a friend's house and someone was hastily picked to be the one to "seek" after all the others who will soon run and hide in various places--usually thinking that their hiding spot is so amazing when it really wasn't.  Then the counting starts, "one-one hundrend, two-one hundred. . . ." and everyone scrambles until they hear "ready or not, here I come!"

Sometimes life can feel this way, that whether you are ready or not, it's coming and there is seemingly little we can do about it.  Maybe this is the way it is for you too, but for me, when life seems to come at me again and again, and starts to make me feel the pressures that come along with it, I am tempted to "hide".  I can retreat into my shell and it's hard to get out.  A bigger issue, however, is when we hide from God.

I was reading in Job this morning and was struck by the magnitude of the suffering this man endured.  He lost everything, and I mean everything--except his life.  Family, work, health, reputation, you name it, he lost it.  And Job began to lose his perspective on God.  His suffering overshadowed his view of his Lord, and he began to "hide" in his loss.

If I'm going to be honest, I think that Job handled things pretty well, all things considered.  He is not described as someone who "lost it", but seemed to keep a pretty level head.  I can even find myself admiring his tenacity as he dealt with everything, including family and friends who were continually pestering him.

But God's ways are not my ways.  He knew that Job was hiding from the truth of things and He wanted to address that, not only for Job's sake but for yours and mine as well.

God told Job to stop focusing on his pain and loss, because it was causing him to see God in ways that were not true.  God spoke to Job and read him the riot act about who He really is, and how Job should view Him.  When you read it, it sounds kind of harsh, that God would make the effort to correct Job when he is in that darkest place imaginable.

But this just shows me again, that God's ways are not my ways.  I am told in this story that God really does have in mind the best for Job, because when he repents and acknowleges God properly, then his life really begins to turn around. 

Job stopped hiding and started to seek the Lord again.

No matter what we are experiencing, no matter what loss or pain we are enduring, no matter what it is that is causing us to "hide", from ourselves, from others, from God, we need to understand that "ready or not here He comes", because He has the right and authority to address us as He did to Job.  But don't forget, He is a God of love and He wants us to be freed from those things that cause us to hide instead of seek Him.

Today, let's put our suffering in perspective:  don't minimize it, because it may be huge, but consider just how much more immense is our God.  Consider how much larger is the love He extends to us--and let's just kneel before Him and offer the only thing we have---

ourselves.

BT