Daily Word of Grace # 113 (August 20, 2020)
During my childhood summers the kids in our neighborhood loved to stay outside late to play Hide and Seek. Some were so good at hiding they never seemed to get caught. Others always hid in the same place and could not run fast to home base and so they were always an “easy catch.” Still others did not even have to hide because they were so fast and elusive that no matter who was “it” they could outmaneuver them and safely reach home base. Of course if you had a crush on the person who was “it” you did not try to hide and actually hoped you would get “caught.” Most of us play some form of hide and seek throughout our lives, and some are plagued with an incessant fear of getting caught. This goes all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when after they ate of the forbidden fruit they tried in vain to hide from the Lord (Genesis 3:8). This has never stopped, for indeed “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way” (Isaiah 53:6). And yet just as God sought Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Jesus became incarnate in order to seek and save a lost world trying in vain to hide from God (Luke 19:10). On Good Friday Jesus refused to hide, but rather allowed himself to “get caught” and be “it.” And the good news of the gospel is that no matter how hard we try to hide, God keeps seeking until we are found and brought safely back to our eternal home base.
Love and Prayers,
Dave