Hide and Seek…this is the game we played together at home yesterday evening. It was raining outside and Ryan was cooking dinner and so we needed a fun and an all ages appropriate game to play together so for about an hour the four of us played together, even though Ellie doesn’t know how to be quiet when she is “hiding”. I love this game and swear it was invented by a parent because if you are really good at finding a suitable hiding place, you might just get a blissful 5-7 minute block of quiet while your children run around the house yelling, “Mommy, where are you?!”
It was during one of these short blissful moments of quiet that I thought about seeking and finding. When you played the game as a kid, did you enjoy hiding more or being “IT?” At this season of life, as I have already shared, I enjoy the hiding part, but there was a season I liked the seeking most of all.
As we walk through our own lives, our faith compels us not to hide in the shadows, but come out into the light. Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8
For the last two months, we have been studying in worship and in community groups 10 Questions Jesus asked and how they were answered. But we, too, are encouraged to ask questions and to learn more. In other words, seek, not hide. In VBS last week, we taught the Elementary Campers about the story of young Jesus asking questions in the Temple when he was lost from his parents. Did he ask questions then because he did not know the answer, or did he already know the answers, but he was modeling the humble act of seeking? I don’t know, but from the beginning of Jesus’ life until these words are spoken in the seventh chapter of Matthew, we are encouraged by our Lord to seek, ask and learn more.
There will be seasons in my life and in my faith journey that I would really rather just hide. Hide my anger, my disappointment, my doubt and let me have my few minutes of blissful quiet to wallow in that. In fact, I think the way the modern church is structured lends to that way of being without even meaning to. We come to worship, we sit and consume and then we leave, week after week. There are not many places built into the hour on Sunday for honest dialogue, vulnerability or a place to ask questions. All of that happens when we reach out and initiate a relationship that goes beyond just consuming at church. Many of you have found what is life giving is when you are a part of a Sunday School class or Bible or Book Study, or a Connect group or a fellowship gathering. This is where we ask our questions and express our doubts, share our fears and come out of our hiding places. If you don’t below to a group like this, I want you to consider joining one this year and I would happy to help get you connected.
May you feel God’s love and grace all around you this day whether you are seeking or hiding and may we walk into the light, together.