No Place to Run...No Place to Hide

     Our grandchildren delight in playing the game of "Hide and Seek" in our home when they come for a visit.  I have to admit that some of their hiding places are very good too.  However, there are times when a giggle gives them away, and they are quickly located.
     As adults, we often try to play this game in more sophisticated ways. My husband and I enjoy watching true crime programs where detectives use modern forensic techniques to discover who committed a crime.  In almost every case, the person responsible leaves a clue behind which leads to their eventual arrest.
      When we do something wrong, we try to hide it from those around us as well as God.  We may be able to fool friends and family, but we can never hide from God.  All we have to do is look back to the Garden of Eden.  After Adam and Eve sinned, their first response was to cover themselves and hide from God.  Yet, God knew where they were all the time, and He also knew what they had done. There is no place for us to escape the all-knowing, all-seeing God who made us.
     One of my favorite Psalms is 139.  In this beautiful Psalm, David describes the intimacy with which God knows us:  "O Lord, you have searched me and know me!  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.  You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."  Now that is knowing someone very intimately and whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, God knows each one of us in the same way.  In some ways that can be unsettling especially if we think we are hiding something.  As David said, He knows our thoughts and what we are going to say before we even say it!  This calls to mind a children's song that goes:  "O be careful little eyes what you see...for the Father up above is looking down in love so be careful little eyes what you see."  It goes on to mention ears and mouth as well.  We would do well to remember that little ditty before we say something we should not.

Our grandson Hudson hiding in his tent

     David goes on in this Psalm to also describe that there is really no way to escape God's presence.  Verses 7-12 read:  "Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there!  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you."  Like Adam and Eve, we may think we have successfully hidden from God so that He may not see what we have done, but we would be wrong, and there is a very good reason for this.
     In verses 15-16, David writes:  "My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them."  At this, we should be amazed.  God created us and formed every part of our being laying out the days we will live.  There is no one who knows us more intimately than God.  So how should we respond to this knowledge?
     First, we must realize that even if no one else sees us commit a sin God does.  Being everywhere present and with us always, we have the unseen Creator who doesn't miss any detail of our life.  Therefore, when we sin, we must be ready to come in repentance to God and confess what we have done and seek His forgiveness.  Keeping a short account also keeps our relationship with the Lord intact (I John 1:9).
     Second, we can trust in a God that knows us and loves us in spite of ourselves.  The heavenly Father loved us so much that He sent His only Son to take our punishment for sin so that we might be forgiven and restored.  He proved His love with the blood of a new and better Covenant.  What security we have through Christ our Lord!
     Finally, we have the assurance that when others do not understand us, God does.  He made us, He knows all our days, our thoughts and even our weaknesses.  Therefore, day or night, we can, through the blood of Jesus Christ, come to Him.  We do not have to hide any more now that Christ has broken the bondage of our sin.  We can come freely to the throne of grace any time in order to talk with our Creator.
     Realizing that we cannot escape the eye of God, we need to keep short accounts as David desired to do.  He closes this beautiful Psalm with these words in verses 23-24:  "Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"  When we ask God to reveal to us our motives/sins, He will be faithful to do that.  This will help us to live a holy life before Him and bring greater glory to His name.  Selah!