No Need to Hide

God loves us and wants to be loved back. “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered,” Jesus Christ tells us about God’s love for us. (Luke 12:7)

Yet many of us believe that if God really knew us, He couldn’t possibly love us. Our shame may cause us to “hide” from God. This is exactly the opposite of “come boldly to the throne of grace,” (Hebrews 4:16) which is what God wants us to feel comfortable doing.

Adam and Eve tried hiding in the garden, after sinning. It didn’t work. They only managed to distance themselves from God, to their great detriment.

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ So he [Adam] said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’” (Gen. 3:8-10)

No one can hide from God. And not one of His children needs to.

“Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:24)

God knows what we’re made of and loves us anyway. His grace is not dependent upon our goodness but upon God’s goodness. To ignore this is to ignore what Christ accomplished for us on the cross. Through Christ, the bridge between people and God was rebuilt. God doesn’t want us to be distant from Him; He loves us and yearns for us to love Him back. But we can’t love someone we don’t know.

Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7 NIV) No hiding! ❚

Janine Pumilia