When I was really young I would hide from my mom while we were shopping... and the closer she got without seeing, and the more frightened she seemed, the more I would have to hold back laughter. (now my daughter does this and I see the cruelty in it!)
In jr high the kids on my street and I would have epic hide and seek nerf gun wars.
Hiding has always been something that I enjoy. I'm guessing it has something to do with the fact that someone is looking for me. That someone is desiring to find me. That someone is going to great lengths just to discover where I am.
Most of the time when whoever I was hiding from found me, they would smile and shout with joy and then the chase would be on and the game would just get more fun as we ran from each other laughing.
But, for most my life, I have also hidden from God.
Hiding from God has been our response to sin as humans from the beginning of sin. It's the first thing Adam and Eve did, and it's our first response now.
Even knowing that Jesus has washed me clean and that I have been redeemed in him, I still hide when I feel like I've really screwed up. Guilt and shame crawl up on my shoulder and start to whisper about how terrible what I just did is. They whisper how there is no way God wants to forgive me this time, and that I have misunderstood grace, that I am holding onto cheap grace and I should be ashamed.
So I hide until I feel I have punished myself enough. Until I feel that I have spent enough time in isolation. Until the feelings of guilt and shame have faded.
What I don't realize is that God is waiting for me, God is searching for me (though he really knows where I am). That God is wanting me to come out and fall into his wonderful arms of love, and healing, and total acceptance. God's love does not waver in any way while I am sinning, while I am doing something I promised I wouldn't ever do again, while I walk away from him. God's love is the only truly constant thing in life. It never changes, especially because of something we have done... we just aren't that powerful. We cannot change God, he is infinitely more than we are.
God is not only happy when we come out of hidding, he celebrates. He celebrates because when we come out, especially when we feel the worst, when the sin or whatever we did is really terrible, he celebrates because now he can begin to heal us and restore us. As we hide and try to fix ourselves we only perpetuate the problem. We make it worse and the feelings of guilt and shame multiply and the next time it happens it's even more crushing.
But as we step into the light, God begins to heal and remove. He loves us in the darkest parts of our life and heart right now, and as we come out of hiding we get to experience this. We get to experience his incredible love. A love deeper and wider and more vast than any ocean... but too often we only explore the shoreline if this infinite ocean of love, while we cling to trying to be moral on our own because that is what we think God wants. True inner morality is only available as we open to God, as we quit trying to be good for him and let him into those locked doors of our heart, as we cling to him in the midst of our depravity accepting that only he can bring life.
So I pray: Abba, help me to come of of hiding. Help me to accept the love you have for all of me, even the things I am ashamed of. Spirit please walk with me into the areas of my inner self that I have hidden, even from myself. Help me cling to you knowing you already know and have loved me perfectly since I was born. Help me forgive myself quickly because it's silly not to if you already have. I want to know you and love you more and am conviced that I must know and love myself more in order to do that.
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