Hide and Seek

One thing I've realized over the past couple weeks is something I'm not so sure I fully believed, or at least fully understood in the past. It's something so many Christians are struggling with in their walk with God, and I think it's a huge key to owning who we are in Christ and becoming more like Him through His Spirit within us. Wanna know this profound truth that's waiting at your doorstep?...

God loves to play hide and seek.

"That's nice, Shane, you childish weirdo." I'm serious! God is a hide-and-seek fanatic, it's how He operates. Isn't that curious? It's a peculiar truth about how God transforms us to His character by His Spirit at work within every Christian. But you know what? Hide and seek, though a simple game, is not one fully understood by many Christians.

I'm reading a book right now called "Victory Over the Darkness" by Neil T. Anderson (thanks Jordan!). In the chapter I just finished, Anderson outlines the importance of understanding the concept of "the old self." Paul talks about the old self a bunch in Scripture, but let's draw from Romans 6:5-7. You see, when Christ died for our sins, He died once and for all. It is a finished work. A done deal. Those of us who believe this have grace beyond reason to live this life untethered from sin and "the old self." We are not who we once were, even though sin is still very much present in the world to try and trip us up. The difference is, greater is He that's within us than He that's within the world. We are more powerful living in Christ than we once were living in the old self. As Anderson states so well, we are not "sinners saved by grace;" in reality, we are "saints who sometimes sin." The Apostle Paul couldn't agree more.

But that saint thing is a whole 'nother blog post for a whole 'nother time!

Paul puts it this way: "Our old self was crucified." That's past tense, if you didn't notice. This is where the struggle for many resides - they don't believe what God has already said about them, that they are His child (John 1:12), an equal heir of God's Kingdom with Christ (Romans 8:17), a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9-10), the very righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

They are maybe told or assume that Christ's work of salvation is ongoing, depending on their own efforts. Again and again, people try to beat the stuffing out of their "old self," wrestling with it as if it's still attached at their hip instead of living in who they already are in Christ. Little do they know, the old self is long-dead...it's been dead for two thousand years. They are beating a very, VERY dead horse.

So you may be asking then, "Shane, if my old self is dead, nailed to the cross with Christ, why do I still feel like I struggle with my old sinful nature?" This leads me to my point: Colossians 3:3 says, "For you died (past tense again), and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." Let's highlight this word "hidden." Many theological interpretations of this passage point to the word "hidden" as something to the effect of "safely nestled away in Christ." That's one meaning in this context, but I prefer the other, which is "concealed."

"What?! Shane, you mean God is concealing Himself from me, even though I'm a Christian?! That's mean!" Narrow is the way, and few there be that find it. Jesus wouldn't have said it if it weren't true. That's not saying Christianity is an exclusive club. It's not! What this concept of "concealment" means is that there is so much of God still to be found. God has so much buried treasure for the believer to discover. And not every treasure is unburied at the time of salvation. If it were, faith would come easy. It wouldn't be forged in us, and it wouldn't be very meaningful or poignant to us, would it?

Instead, the Spirit life is hidden in Christ. I'm not referring to the Holy Spirit, which God empowers every believer with through salvation; I'm talking about the Spirit life, meaning the transformative process of becoming like God through intimacy and relationship with Him. It's a hidden treasure. How exciting! Isn't that fun?! We already died to sin with Christ, but now there's treasure to discover! The Spirit life is not for couch-potato posers. It's for seekers. God hides, we seek!

Like I mentioned earlier, I always struggled with the concept that God often hides stuff from us. I never understood why the good Father, the same who would never give us a snake if we asked for a fish (according to Jesus), would hide stuff from us. It seemed kinda cloak-and-dagger to me for a time in my life. Then for a while it seemed really weird..."I found Jesus!" - like He was lost or oblivious or something. But now I realize the importance of God hiding stuff from us, of hiding Himself from us. There are lots of reasons, but here's a couple that come to mind:

1. To develop seekers - Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount to "seek and you will find." Like I said earlier, if God instantly revealed all the deep, profound, transformative things about Himself and the Kingdom at the moment of salvation, it would contradict His very nature. The concept of transformation (God's nature) and the desire for instant gratification (human nature) are not on the same page in the Kingdom dictionary - they clash at a fundamental level. He knew there would be many who tried to enter the Kingdom on Christ's coat tails instead of pressing into God's process through faith, and those are not the seekers. The Kingdom is hidden and set aside for the seekers. It's just how God works. Salvation is offered to everyone without prejudice, but His Spirit life is a process to be discovered, not a right or something to be earned. Which leads me to a second reason God hides stuff from us...

2. To protect us - there is so much bad theology and misleading out in the open, ripe for any Christian's picking. With the deeper things of God hidden in Christ, it secures a sure place for us to go to receive truth and affirmation every single time: the source of life itself, God Almighty. The mystery of the Gospel is Christ in all His fullness (Colossians 1:25-27), hidden from the wise and revealed to the simple, the hide-and-seekers (Matthew 11:25). God has secured this truth in a safe place in Christ, ripe for the seekers' picking. I love how The Message puts it in Matthew 11:27 - "This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen."

Does this God of hide-and-seek make sense now? There are always deeper intimacies with the Father, deeper truths to discover about Christ's character, deeper waters of worship to wade into, deeper aspects of the Holy Spirit's leading within us. God still speaks today, and He wants to speak to you, even in this moment. There are many treasures to discover in Him, a wealth of resources in His Spirit. He's just waiting for you to stop counting, uncover your eyes, and come find Him.

"Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near." (Isaiah 55:6)