Playing Hide and Seek with God

Does God live in your house? In your place of work? In the busyness of your life? Or do you (like many of us) "save" God for worship services, religious holidays, Bible readings, or church work? Do we think that God prefers stained glass and pews to a tree decked out in autumn colors, or a good time shared with a friend?

I've been guilty of choosing when and where I could meet God and experience his love. I've thought, "I can find him on a retreat, but not when I'm driving the carpool. He can speak to me from the Bible, but not from a TV show." But when I arbitrarily decide where God can be found and where he can't I've drastically curtailed his avenues of reaching out to me. It makes about as much sense a not opening a gift because we weren't planning on it being wrapped that way! Every moment of every day holds the possibility of encountering God's love.

Nicholas of Gusa, a fifteenth century bishop, is reported to have said, "God is he whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere." If you think about that for very long, it will fill you with awe. There is the same feeling reading Paul's claim in Romans 11: "From him and through him and for him are all things."  In Genesis we see that God's original intention seemed to have been an intimate and perpetual communion with his creation. But human beings began to lose touch with the sense of God's presence everywhere, all the time. During the Exodus, the Israelites began to think of God's presence localized with the Ark of the Covenant. As Old Testament history progressed, God's presence was considered to be enthroned in the temple in Jerusalem. The splitting of sacred and secular had begun.

With the coming of Jesus also came an incredible expansion of the perception of God in the world. God was now among us in human form. It was Jesus who re-established the fullness of intimate communion with the Father. At his death, the curtain of the Temple was literally torn in two -- God was  no longer hidden behind a veil.

Evelyn Underhill observed that we are surrounded on all sides by God. But often we're no more conscious of him than we are of the air we breathe. Why is that?

When I was in grade school the art teacher, Mrs. Muncie, was always bustling around so busily that she'd get easily sidetracked and forget what she started to do. The joke of the class was that Mrs. Muncie was always losing her glasses and her keys -- she'd run around frantically, accusing us of taking them, when most of the time the glasses were stuck on top of her head and the keys were laying in plain sight on the desk where she'd put them. It's the same sort of nonsensical thing we do with God: he's right here in plain sight, brimming over with love for us, while we run around frantically crying "Where is God?"

But knowing God is everywhere and realizing he's with you is only the beginning. How many times my children have come to me to tell me something important to them, and I was busy and distracted and didn't listen with my full attention. Being truly present to one another requires that we be open to each other, that we really listen. It's the same way with God: we need to clear away the distractions and stand ready to let him in.

A group of scholars came to see a religious teacher, who surprised them by asking what seemed to be a foolish question: "Where is the dwelling place of God?" The scholars laughed and replied, "What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of his glory?" The teacher smiled and said, "God dwells wherever man lets him in." In the book of James we read a similar statement, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you."

When my daughter Joanna was little, she loved to play hide and seek. A favorite hiding place was behind the living room curtain. She would stand as still as a statue, waiting while I "searched" for her. What she didn't realize was that her little feet stuck out from beneath the curtain, and of course I could always see immediately where she was. But I would pretend to look for her, with my running commentary of "Joanna, where ARE you? Now where can that girl be?" and so on. Then I'd make a great show of discovering her: "There you are! I looked everywhere!" She'd giggle with delight and the game would begin again, with Jo never realizing that I'd known all along where she was. "Where are you, Jo?" I'd call, searching her out because I loved her and wanted to find her.

And so it is with God -- he loved humankind enough to search us out before we even knew we were lost. Even when we think we're hidden from him, our feet showing from under the curtain give us away every time. And just as Joanna shrieked with laughter when I "found" her, we can feel similar excitement and joy when we let God find us.

God dwells where we let him in. In our homes, in our cars, at our workplaces, standing in line at the grocery store. He is with us where we are.

Even when we think we're hiding.


(adapted from a devotional given at Sunset Presbyterian Church in about 1982).