Playing Hide & Seek With God

When my boys were younger one of their favorite things to do was to play "Hide and Seek" with me. My youngest son, particularly, delighted in the game. He was really good at finding a great place to hide, but he wasn't so good at staying hidden. As I would begin to search for him he would get tickled at how great his hiding place was. The closer I would get in my unfruitful search, the more he would giggle, until he simply couldn't contain himself. Inevitably his laughter and sheer delight with the game would betray his carefully chosen hiding place.

In my study and sermon preparation this weekend I read a familiar scripture from a translation that I don't use very often. The imagery provided by this different translation brought the memories of playing hide and seek with my young son to my mind. Jeremiah 29:11 begins like this, "I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope. Then you will call to me. You will come and pray to me, and I will hear you. When you look for me, you will find me." However, the last portion of verse 13 and the first part of verse 14 are what jumped out at me. The Lord declares, "When you wholeheartedly seek me, I will let you find me..." (Jeremiah 29:11-14 GWT)

The wonderful news enclosed in that verse is that we serve a God that wants to be found! To my young son the joy of the game was in being found by his loving father. He wasn't near as interested in evading me as he was in being found by me. That's why it never bothered him that he gave himself away. I want you to know, today, that God wants you to find him. As a matter of fact, He's gone out of his way to make it easy for you. He said, "If you will seek me with your whole heart, I will let you find me."

So many times we convince ourselves that God is hard to find. We often feel like a blind man stumbling in the dark looking for the light switch. When the real truth of the matter is that God is easy to find. The only prerequisite is that we seek him with our whole heart. I wonder, today, what you would discover in God if you would only take him at his word and seek him with your whole heart. I am persuaded that he longs to reveal himself to you, that he has a strong desire to draw you closer to him.

So, what are you waiting on? Perhaps its time that you found a place of prayer and said, "Ready or not, here I come..."