It is time to come out of hiding

Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the Lord. 

(Jeremiah 23:24 NLT)

As kids, we played that all-time favorite of kids everywhere - hide and seek. Someone would be tagged "it", cover their eyes, and count to 100 while all the others would scurry off into "secret hiding places". The goal was to not be discovered - you wanted the "best" hiding place ever. This might have worked well in those "fun and games" times of our youth, but as we got older, the game of hiding wasn't always followed by someone seeking to uncover our hiding places! Into adulthood, our hiding places just got a little more "sophisticated" and we aren't as much "physically" hiding as it is we are hiding things emotional and a little harder to conceal!

Maybe we don't think anyone is trying to uncover those places, but God knows them ALL anyway! He doesn't have to work hard to discover them, but sometimes he has to work hard on us so that we come to the place where we realize we have been hiding those hurts and emotional burdens in those secret places! Nothing remains hidden in the presence of Jesus. Maybe that is why we sometimes shy away from really getting really close in our walk with Jesus - we don't want to have those things hidden away so carefully discovered or exposed. If you listen closely as you do draw close, you will hear those all too familiar words, "All come free". The hiding is over!

What are we worried about when God invites us to come free? Could it be that we are concerned we might have to admit we have been wrong in the matter we have held such bitterness over? Could it be the anger we have welled up inside for so long is points to a hugely injured amount of pride on our part that we have been too stubborn to admit? Might it just be there has been way too much of "me", "me", "me" that we don't want exposed to anyone else because they'd see just how self-centered our perceptions have been in a matter? These are all very real things that keep us in hiding for way too long and God isn't going to be content to let us hide forever. He will one day call for us to "come free" and when he does, we need not fear what he will discover - for he knows it all anyway!

In issues of damaged relationships, we could have been "right" in our own eyes for so long we are totally scared and emotionally unprepared to actually see things as God sees them. In issues of wrongs perpetrated on others, we could have justified our "not coming clean" for so long that we actually think it would be okay to allow those wrongs to go along as they have been. The truth is that God isn't afraid to show us his perspective - but in so doing, he also shows us the pathway to totally being "free" of those things that have kept us so bound up in hiding for so long. It isn't good to have hiding places - for they only make us think things have been forgotten or dealt with. The fact remains - the things hidden still exist - they just aren't as easily noticed by us or others. God still sees them, though, no matter how good a job we do hiding! Just sayin!