I played a very short game of hide and seek with Caleb yesterday. I ran upstairs ahead of him and hid behind our bed. He ran up too, but then got distracted by some toy that he found, and instead of looking for me, he walked around looking at the toy. Needless to say, I did not stay hidden for long.
I remember when the kids were still learning how to play hide-and-seek. I would hide in really obvious places (like under a blanket in the middle of the room). Of course, their hiding places were even more obvious ... they hid in the exact same place as I had just hidden and then told me to find them. :-) But as the kids got more practice at it, I'd try to find some more challenging places to hide. One of the best was in our laundry room. Now, the kids never had any reason to go in our laundry room. All that is there is the washer and dryer. And they didn't do any laundry, so why go in that room? So when we played hide-and-seek, they never even thought about looking in the laundry room. Which made it quite perfect. And then when it would take too long and I could tell they were getting frustrated, I'd start making little noises. And THEN they would find me! And it's always fun to see their delighted little faces when they find me. But the point of the game was ... I wanted to be found by them. Maybe give me a minute of silence to me myself first ... but I didn't want to stay hidden all afternoon ... I wanted to be found.
Well, I'm continuing on in my Beth Moore bible study, and today we found ourselves in Acts 19, Paul's 3rd missionary journey - spending 2+ years in Ephesus. And in Ephesus, God did EXTRAORDINARY things through Paul, to get the people's attention. But what I found really interesting is the concept that God WANTED to be found by the people.
Ephesus was a city known for its interest in magic and the occult and the unseen world. So God used their interest and performed amazing miracles - far surpassing anything they had ever seen. Even handkerchiefs that Paul touched were used by God to cure illnesses and remove evil spirits. God wanted to be found by the Ephesians. As Beth said, "He did not lead them through a cloudy pillar. He got their attention through supernatural phenomena, because that's where they were looking."
In the same way, God got the attention of the Magi by showing up where they were looking ... the stars. "When He wanted to lead the Magi to the Christ child, He did not lead them by a mark in the sand. He led them through a star because they were star gazers - then He went beyond anything they had ever seen ... God wants to be found ... and He is so gracious to show up right where we are looking." I can just imagine if God had made a huge "crop circle" in the Magi's front lawn ... it's huge, glowing bright fushia, with a big smiley face lawn gnome perched right in the middle. And the Magi would walk past it, never seeing it, because their necks are forever tilted upwards looking at the sky. Maybe that's why God used a star. He is wise and He knows how to be found, if we are willing to recognize Him.
I bet God would be awesome at hide-and-seek ... he'd pick a great hiding spot, but never tough enough that we couldn't find Him. And if we looked and looked and started to despair, His giggling would lead us straight to Him ... hiding underneath a blanket in the middle of the living room with His feet sticking out.
~JG
