This ritual of playing hide-and-seek isn’t anything new.  It is as old as Eden.

Most mornings, I wake up slowly.  I sip a cup of coffee, I sit quietly at my desk with an open Bible, journal, and devotional prompts in front of me.  I linger as long as I can in the presence of the One who holds my heart, and then I take a deep breath, turn off the lights to my study, and enter the kitchen to enter the day.

After my slow, quiet rhythm, most mornings I am met with these loud and jarring words, “MAMA, I’M HIDING!  COME GET ME!”  And my quiet quickly goes to “game-on” as I go to find my daughter.  

Sometimes she is under the ottoman, sometimes she is behind the blues and greens in the dining room curtains, and sometimes she is wedged between the bookcase and the wall.  But wherever she is, I find her.  I hug her big, gather her up in my arms, and assure her that today, just like every other day she has been in our home, she is found.  She is safe, she is secure, and she is loved by parents who won’t go away.

While this morning routine used to bother me as a frustrating game I had to play when I was trying to get four girls out the door for school, it has become a routine I treasure.

That’s because my youngest daughter was born in China.  When she was four days old, she was left by the two people in life who were never meant to leave you, and she spent the first tender phase of her life in an orphanage.  While we had the privilege and gift of adopting Mia Grace when she was seventeen months old, the question and ache in her heart still remains: “Today, if I hide, will someone still come to find me?”  

Understanding my daughter’s ache helped me understand the ache in my heart as well: every morning when I sit at my desk, cup of coffee in my hand, and open the pages of my journal, I start by asking my Father this question: “Today, will You come find me?”

And once I’ve spilled out on the pages of my journal all the places where I am hiding – stuck in depression, overwhelmed by life, regretting failures and past mistakes, angry and rehearsing old wounds or sometimes fresh wounds – I open the pages of my Bible, the words of my Father, and every morning, without fail, I hear His response back: “I see you.  I hear you.  I know you.  I love you.  I’ve found you.  Come into my presence, and sit down.”

His response isn’t always easy to hear – it often involves my need to repent, my need to forgive, my need to humble myself and get low, my need to depend, my need to trust, my need to rest, to wait, to surrender.  But His words are always necessary to hear, and they always provide the answer I am looking for – no matter where I hide, I am always found.  

This ritual of playing hide-and-seek isn’t anything new.  It is as old as Eden.

In Genesis 3 we read that after Adam and Eve sinned, God came to walk and talk with them in the cool of the day.  But in typical childish fashion, Adam and Eve hide.  They hide from their Father.  But instead of walking away, or becoming frustrated or irritated, God asks the questions his children need to hear: “Where are you?”  “Who told you that you were naked?”  “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”  (Genesis 3:9,11). 

As we see throughout all of Scripture, God’s questions are never for Him to gain understanding – He already knows.  God’s questions are for us.  God’s questions are so that all that we are stuffing and hiding and holding on the inside can come up and out and be accounted for.  Repented of.  Covered.  Healed.  Made new.

Yes, there were consequences for Adam and Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:14-19).  But there was also covering.  While God had to drive Adam and Eve out of the garden because He is just, He provided covering and the promise of atonement for them because He is merciful (Genesis 3:21).

But here is the good news – the great news actually – for today.  Every time we hide because of our hurt and failure, our mistakes and mess-ups, our bruises and bumps, we are still found and met with mercy.  

Our just God gives wise consequences to discipline us, train us, and point us back towards right relationship with Him (Hebrews 12:7-11), but He also gives us mercy that shields us, protects us, and heals the wounds of our hearts.  Instead of the full weight of our sin and disobedience falling on us, He caused it to fall on His Son.  Another was slain in our place.  Another’s blood atoned for our failing and falling and hiding, and instead of exposure, shame, guilt, and separation, we are met with mercy.  We are covered through the blood of the Lamb.

As a believer in Christ, while I know this in my head, just like my daughter, I have to re-enact this with my heart day after day after day.  I will never outgrow my need for hide and seek.  I will never need to stop asking God the question, “If I hide, will you come and find me?”  And He will never be weary of saying, “Ready or not, here I come!  Here I am to find you and cover you with mercy and steadfast love.”  

I don’t know where you are hiding today or the specific areas where you desperately need to be found, but your Father does.  All you have to do is ask Him.  Call out, open the pages of His Word, and receive Jesus.  In Him, every lost child is found.