by Dennis and Barbara Rainey
December 4
Hide and Seek (Part One) Genesis 3:8
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Remember playing "hide and seek" when you were a kid? My cousins and I usually played it just before dark. One kid was designated "It." While"It" covered his or her eyes (maybe) and counted out loud to 50 or 100, the rest of us scurried to our elusive hiding spots. Then "It" would try to find us before we dashed back to the safety of the "base," usually the trunk of a massive tree.I remember being significantly better at hiding than I was at seeking. No one could find me. But after awhile, even the sheer joy of knowing that I had outwitted my buddies was overridden by my solitude. It was this loneliness that invariably would flush me out into the open.
In the same way, most of us are more adept at hiding than seeking in our relationships. The human race is well trained in hiding-we've been doing it since the beginning of time. When Adam and Eve got into trouble in the Garden of Eden, the first thing they did was to run and hide. They hid from one another-the notorious fig leaf cover-up. Then they tried to conceal their disobedience by hiding from God.
From that point on, we've worn masks in our relationships, both with God and with other human beings. We hide because we are afraid to unmask ourselves and let people see us for who we really are. We feel that if others discover our faults, they'll reject us.
The problem is that God did not create us to hide. In the garden, He sought out Adam and Eve. And today He pursues us and challenges us to come out of our sinful, self-absorbed isolation and yield to being discovered both by Him and by our spouses.
Prayer:
To be truly "discovered" both by God and by your mate.
Discuss: Are you aware of keeping a part of your life hidden from your mate or from God?