One of my favorite games as I was growing up, was playing "kick the can" on my aunt and uncle's farm. It was a version of hide and seek. After it got dark, my cousins and I would take an old tin can and set it in between the house and the barn, in the wide open space. One person would close their eyes and count, and everyone else would scatter to our hiding spots. As the seeker discovered people, they would have to be tagged to be out. The can came into play if someone managed to "kick" it, then everyone tugged would go free and the person would have to start counting all over again.
Like my own kids used to do, my grand-kids love to play hide and seek. In fact I almost always suggested the idea, and I insisted that I be the seeker. Why you ask? Because the hiders have to be quiet! And still, staying in one place, until I find them! And I'm a really bad seeker. (wink, wink) Here is a tip. When your hiding from the children, don't have your cell phone in your pocket. It's like a clanging beacon to those little gremlins when it goes off!
Although "hide and seek" was a fun game when we were little, and a great quiet time when we are adults, some of us are still playing "hide and seek" in our own lives. We are hiding our true selves. Afraid if anyone really saw us, they would reject us, find us lacking, and be disappointed. So we pretend to fine, when our heart is aching. We pretend to be strong when we feel at our weakest, and we pretend to be what makes everyone else more comfortable. But here is the thing about hiding. Remember when you were a kid playing and you were hiding, waiting to be found? What if, no one ever came to find you? What if, just short of finding you, they all quit playing? It would make you feel very unimportant, irrelevant, and not worth the effort.
No matter how much we all like hiding, all of us like to be found. We wait with excitement, our hearts pounding so loud we are sure it will give us away. We hold our breath as the footsteps get closer as to not make a sound. You see we don't want the finding of us to be easy. We want to be searched for, pursued, sought after and discovered. Because anything with great value is worth the effort.
When we are hiding our true selves, we want someone to say, "I see the real you, it's amazing, you can come out now." The one person we can't hide from is God. He sees us. Always. And He loves us. Always. Why wouldn't He? After all, we are one of his masterpieces, created on purpose and designed for a purpose. God says we are very important, very relevant and of GREAT worth!
Do you ever notice when you played "hide and seek", no one ever wanted to be the seeker? We would all immediately yell, "not it!" But when it was our turn to seek, we didn't want to fail. There was a lot of pressure. While you were finding (seeking) one person, someone else might slip by. Some of us were "hard wired" to be seekers. Seekers in life are always looking for an answer to the why, or how, or the truth. They are continually on the hunt to grow and expand their understanding of their own heart and the heart of others. Seekers will turn over every stone to "find" that one gem of understanding. Just like in hide and seek, it's not about the hunt to find all the hiding spots, its about the victory.
Over the years I have perfected the art of hiding. I thought I was protecting my heart from a catastrophic blow. I couldn't take one more rejection, one more criticism, one more "you are not enough" or one more "you are too much." I had this continual battle going on in my heart. "Don't show the real you, you will get hurt," or "Please someone find me, see me."
And then God spoke to me those four little words........ "Olly, olly, oxen free." Which means: It is safe to emerge from hiding.........................................