When God's Grace "Hides"

When Grace Hides
Aaron Schulman 12-16-10

Sometimes when my wife and I are out of the room, or out of the house for a period of time, and then come home or enter the room, Grace likes to pretend she is hiding, and though we can see her, or know where she is, she hides. Sometimes she is in plain site, and tucks her head, hiding her eyes, thinking that as long as she can’t see us, then we must not be able to see her.

At other times, Grace hides, and becomes very quiet when she is doing something she is not supposed to be doing. There are several things that we have made “off limits”, and though Grace is very familiar with these things, she still returns to the forbidden places and things: Oh well. . . typical for a 2-and-a-half year old. Grace hides from us for several reasons: to have fun, or to conceal things. When Grace hides for fun, she wants us to find her, to come and seek her, and to make her laugh with excitement when she is discovered. And when she is doing things that are beyond her permissions, she does not want to be found. When she is “busted” she often scurries to put the “off limits” item back in its place, or she will hand it over to us, looking up with large puppy-like eyes, hoping we will believe she is innocent.

God’s grace is similar in some ways, though His grace is never necessarily restrained by our rules, because we do not contain God. There are times when God’s grace seemingly hides from us: He seems very quiet, distant, or even insensitive and uncaring. We may have desperate times when we scream out for mercy from the depths of our soul, often hearing nothing in return, and then we feel so alone. . . so misunderstood. . . so out of place. And in response, sometimes God waits in these times, and allows us room to vent, to get it all out, to come unraveled, while He simply waits nearby, still holding us, still protecting, and still loving.

Sometimes, when God’s Grace apparently hides, He is asking us to surrender, to give up something, perhaps our striving or our demands to have an answer from God. Sometimes He is simply wanting us to continue drawing closer to Him, to press in and to break through the loneliness and despair to experience a depth of intimacy and worship that we could not realize otherwise. Sometimes it is the contrast between the depths of our darkest struggles that, when we do finally break through and experience the Grace of His redeeming and all encompassing presence that we grow to appreciate the true life that comes in worship and intimacy with Him. Sometimes He is just wanting us to quit, surrender, return to the everlasting peace that comes when our soul experiences the beauty, comfort and refreshing of His rest: and those things for which we strive internally and externally do not appear so immediately urgent anymore. Many times, and it has been true in my life more often than not, God apparently hides the way. He did it with the Great Prophet Elisha. . . why not you an I?

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me why.” (2 Kings 4: 27 NIV)

I come to God often hoping to find answers and direction, and He often will apparently hide or conceal the answer. Perhaps it is not the right season to know. Perhaps He is working through other people in my life, keeping me in the way of relationship with others. At other times, He will address something completely off my “spiritual radar”. And most often, He is silent to the things I am seeking, and in return, if I am seeking, His response is the simple Grace of His presence.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. (Proverbs 25:2)

So many times in life I am making goals and decisions much larger and more urgent than they apparently are to Him. And when I go to seek Him to get answers, He hides them or hides the apparent way. This seems to be the content of much of the clutter that stands in the way when I come to worship or to seek Him . . . those things I have made so important that I fight for an answer . . . yet He remains silent on those things, so very often. It is not that He does not care, but that perhaps in His loving Grace, He know what the main thing is. Sometimes I will wrestle with Him, like Jacob (Israel), for hours, days, weeks, months, even years on an issue, and though I am searching it out, He often responds with the Glory of His touch and presence, putting everything back into perspective.

God, through His perfect omniscient and omnipotent Grace understands what I need to know, and what I do not need to know (as much as I may struggle with it), and in creating me and authoring my life story, He knows that more than anything I need to experience daily deep communion with Him, whereby the depths of my soul and heart can come clean, come unchained from the things it clings to and gives over to, and become renewed, refreshed daily. More often than not, He is using these troubles to continually bring me back to Him - to find solace, peace, freedom from worry and striving. . . to find Him again. Not that He is lost, but that I am seeking answers and life in the lesser things.

There are perhaps countless reasons that God’s Grace hides things from my sight or understanding, and in all, He is continually reminding me that while I am seeking a way. . . He is the Way.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6 NIV)