Hide & Seek

I went looking for the fig leaves,
And you asked me what they're for.
I was building up a wall,
And you offered me a door
–Jon Foreman

Hiding.

Humans have been practicing this for quite some time. Hide & Seek isn't a children's game. It's a broken human one. We hide. God seeks.

Our Father relentlessly pursues His Children. No peace can match the rest given through this simple truth.

The fact that God comes to me is the source and beauty of the Good News. God stoops. He graces us with His presence. He loves and lives with sinners. He even dines with them, much to the chagrin of "rule-followers," ancient Pharisees and modern legalists by other names.

That remains me of a story that Jesus told about two brothers that forgot that they were sons. The first brother squandered his inheritance and disowned his Father in the process. Scandalous stuff. Eventually, he got sick of running and hiding. He came home. But before the first son could apologize, equivocate, and petition for a lesser role as a slave, the Father ran. The Father restored His son as a son. Even more scandalous. 

The Father never gave up on His child and He will never give up on you.

The story gets better. The older brother, who geographically never left his Father, was very far from Him. The older brother sees himself as a slave, earning his standing as a son through right behavior.

The crazy thing about the story of the two brothers is that BOTH brothers believe the exact same lie: that we can change our sonship of our Heavenly Father through our actions. Both sons become slaves when they believe this performance-based lie. May you know the truth that you are part of the family, a son or daughter of the King, not because of what you DO, but because of who you ARE.