Hide and seek with God

Text study on Mark 1:29-39
Lectionary text for Feb. 5, 2012

I loved to play the hide-and-seek game when I was young. My cousins and I would form teams and hide in all of the nooks and crannies of my grandmother’s basement.

We would count to 30 and then seek those who were hidden. Sometimes finding each other was quick. Other times, it was a challenge. But, in the end, we were always found.

How many times do we intentionally seek God? Does God hide? Is God easily found? What happens when we give up our seeking and ask God to come out of hiding?

Even before we ask, God is already out in the open: ready, willing and eager to be found. But sometimes it is hard to see God in our immediate present.

Lately, I have been on the seeking end of this game — if you can call it a game. It’s not God who is playing the game. It is me. I seek what is already revealed.

Look back to see

When the life of faith gets tough, God is revealed when we look back and notice the pattern God has established with us over the years. We notice the moments of hope and reconciliation, moments of healing and hope.

And we trust that if we can see God in what is past, it stands to reason that God is in our present and leading us to our future. In those seeking times when it seems that God is absent, we trust the history and promise of the living God’s presence.

Are you also seeking? Take a moment and look back at all of the awesome things God has done in your life up until now. Bask in God’s love, strength and glory with the knowledge that God is with you all day, every day and isn’t hiding.

Talkback:

• When in your life have you experienced the hiddenness or absence of God’s presence?
  
• What recollection or memory reminds you of a time when you felt the presence of God? How does that recollection strengthen your sense of trust and faith?
  
• How does the Christian community point to the presence of God in times of violence, injustice or despair?

Jill Schott is a private-practice pastoral counselor meeting the needs of the mind, body and spirit of the client. When not seeing clients, Jill shares her faith and love of God through her involvement in youth ministry at Immanuel Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation in Norwood, Pa.

You might also like to read:
Answering the Lord
Believing that God will provide
Hide and seek