Hide and Seek

You remember playing this game as a child, don’t you?

One of my earliest memories of playing this game was before I started school, so I must have been about four or five years old. We were playing the game inside our house so good hiding places were limited. At some point my dad decided to help me find a good spot to hide.

We had a hall linen closet with several shelves. My dad found a spot on the top shelf where I could hide (only a preschooler could have fit there!). Dad lifted me up and placed me on the shelf. I curled up on my side and kept quiet as he shut the door to the closet.

Now, you also need to know that as a child I was afraid of the dark. Frankly, being alone in the dark creeped me out. But I didn’t want anyone to know this, so I did my best to stifle my fears as I hid in the dark closet. As time crept by—hours it seemed—without being found, I started wishing that someone would, in fact, find me. I wanted to be found.

I thought of hiding in that closet as I read the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.

Adam and Eve had fallen prey to the wily deception of the serpent. When they did, something dramatically changed in their relationship with God. Notice Genesis 3:8,9.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ ”

When sin came into the world, instead of welcoming the sound of God coming to meet with them, Adam and Eve hid. But I wonder: Was there something inside of them that yearned to be found?

The key part of this story to me is that though Adam and Eve were hiding from God, the Bible says that God called to them “Where are you?”

God was so in love with Adam and Eve and was so intent on this relationship continuing that God went looking for them.

Now let’s be honest. If God is God, He already knew where Adam and Eve were hiding. He wasn’t looking for His sake as if He didn’t know where they were. God went looking for Adam and Eve for their sake. They needed to know that even though they had fallen prey to temptation, they still mattered to God. They needed to know that God still loved and cared for them. They needed to know they were still His beloved creation.

And so God went looking for them. That’s the essence of grace, don’t you think?

The next time you’re tempted to hide from God in shame because you’ve fallen prey to the devil’s wiles, remember that God’s love and grace compels Him to come looking for you. And He will always find you.

God always wins at hide and seek!