Hide-and-Seek Anyone?

There are probably times in your faith experience when you feel as though you are just spinning your wheels. Perhaps after years of trying your level best to follow the ways of God, God seems more distant now than ever and to make matters worse, indifferent to your struggles.

Believe me, you are in good company. Most of us have felt that way at times, including the people who stand in the pulpits on Sundays and confidently tell us about God. In their private moments even the men and women who minister to us, proclaim God’s Word to us and offer the bread and wine to us, are as perplexed by the mysterious ways of God as we are, maybe even more so because they have given their lives to a God who is as elusive as he is incomprehensible. The truth of the matter is, God’s presence is slippery at best and as the writer Christian Wiman says, “The moment you begin to speak with certitude about God, he is gone.”

It may be of some encouragement to know that the people in the Bible also experienced God as rather elusive. Sometimes they felt close to God, but often they felt that God had abandoned them. In reality, their experiences with God were not all that different from ours. It is almost as if God plays hide-and-seek with us, and our role is to look for God’s hidden presence.

I don’t know if God plays hide-and-seek with us or not, but I can more than understand why many of us feel that way. Virtually every day we are bombarded with one horrific story after another and see little evidence of how God could be part of this troubled world. By slightly amending the phrase from the popular 70s and 80s variety show Hee Haw, we might conclude that if it weren’t for bad news, there wouldn’t be any news at all.  And yet, as Paul Tillich has written, “here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves” we see glimpses of divine presence.

A 3 ½-year-old girl lives not far from us and on occasion she comes to our house to see my wife and raid the refrigerator for her favorite yogurt! Emily has become dear to us, and we are delighted whenever she pays us a visit.

One of the games she loves to play is hide-and-seek. She will tell my wife and me to count to twenty while she finds a place to hide. When we begin to look for her, Emily immediately gives herself away by giggling. We pretend, of course, not to hear and continue to search, but all the while, she can’t stop giggling. She desperately wants us to find her, and yet she stays in her hiding place—giggling.  In the mind of my 3 ½-year-old friend, the best part of hide-and-seek is being found.

If God does hide from us, I think there is also a really good chance that God delights in being found. Just like my little friend, God leaves traces of divine presence in every corner where we live, little giggles of laughter, if you please, and we will almost surely encounter him, if we just closely observe life around us.

A few days ago on NPR a young mother told a story that beautifully illustrates this truth. One cold winter day Betsy Cox from Simpsonville, South Carolina, needed to buy a space heater for her apartment. She was a new mom and didn’t want her baby to get chilled. The day was overcast and cold, she was tired and cranky, and just wanted to get to the store, buy the heater and get back home. She dressed her baby in warm clothes, and off they raced to a local store not far away.

As luck would have it, when she walked down the aisle to the space heater section, she discovered they were sold out. Now with the added frustration of a wasted trip, making her feel even more miserable, she moved to another part of the store to buy some cleaning products to salvage something from the hassle of leaving her home on such a frigid day. Suddenly, she heard a booming voice with a heavy southern accent immediately in front of her.

A complete stranger approached Betsy and glanced down at the stroller. The man seemed almost bigger than life, with a jolly demeanor that reminded Betsy of Santa Claus. He sauntered over to Betsy and her baby and then called out to his wife who was standing nearby, “You gotta come see this baby.” He asked Betsy if they could look at her new born infant and when given permission, he exclaimed in his charming southern voice, “He has the most beautiful blue eyeballs!”

Betsy had never heard anyone refer to eyes as eyeballs before, and the unusual expression brought a smile to her face. Her sour mood immediately changed, and she felt the darkness lift from her spirit. Betsy and the couple chatted for a few minutes, and then as the man and his wife turned to leave, he said to Betsy, “God was real good to you.”

The man spoke the words with such passion, such conviction, that it just about took Betsy’s breath away. It was an amazing and completely unexpected experience. It took her a moment to regain her composure, and then she hurried after the elderly couple, but they were nowhere to be found. It was like they had just disappeared into thin air.

When she left the store and walked out into the cold air, her attitude had completely changed. She explains that “in a blink of an eye” his presence and beautiful words transformed her day.

Our world is plagued with all kinds of problems and challenges. There is, indeed, much evil all around us, and there are times when God seems far away. Many of us have been in that gloomy dungeon of life when emptiness and despair choke all the joy out of life, and, if we’re not careful, the darkness can overwhelm us.

But in the midst of our troubled world God has left a few serendipitous giggles that will guide us, if we walk by faith, to a better place—a place where goodness, kindness and love can be found. If we pay close attention, we may hear the joyful sound of God giving himself away—like the soft laughter of a child who desperately wants to be found.

These tell-tale signs beckon us to find divine presence, and they are so very near, if we just take the time to look and listen. We can hear the hint of a divine chuckle in a simple word of encouragement, a kindly smile from a stranger, a friend whose laughter is contagious, a spouse who understands our inconsiderate ways and chooses to forgive or countless other subtle clues where God appears to be signaling, “Here I am.” If we are vigilantly attentive to the everyday and remarkable acts of human love and kindness, we may be pleasantly surprised to find our world transformed. God takes great pleasure in being found!

Happy Thanksgiving!