Sometimes Baxter hides. He hides when he is afraid, like when the vacuum cleaner starts. But he also hides just to play a game sometimes. I come home or get out of my chair after reading for a spell, and he is nowhere to be found. I check all of his favorite spots — his bed, my bed, choice chairs, the rug near the heating vent, the rug near the sunny window, the bathtub—but no trace of him. He vanishes in plain sight. He doesn’t go away. He just blends into the surroundings in silence. He might be near a leg under the dining room table. He might sit quietly by the door to the garage, and most elusive of all, he might go into the front office which I never use except to store some records. He just sits there on the floor, wondering how long it will take me to figure out where he is. If Baxter feels sorry for me during this search for the obvious, he sometimes will answer when I call his name, but only after some time has passed. After all, he has to win this game by proudly prancing across my path as if to say, “I was there all the time. What’s wrong with you?” This is his version of hide and seek, but we never take turns at different sides in the game. He is always hiding, and I am always seeking. He eventually wins, and I have a good chuckle.
God plays hide and seek sometimes. Like Baxter, He can disappear by quietly blending into the familiar surroundings. Because they are familiar, we think we know what’s there, so we often don’t take a second look. But hidden in the common places of our lives, there’s a quiet presence, blending into the surroundings but adding an uncommon dimension to them. We need to search for this silent divine partner with the tools at our disposal.
One of those tools is attention. We need to give God our attention. We live with so many distractions that we sometimes don’t realize how we have lost our focus. We just go from one thing to another, checking off our “to do” list, and feeling exhausted in the end, wondering what we accomplished. God hides at times to get us to focus on Him. When we seek the Lord earnestly, our other responsibilities fall into place in their proper priority. We take on one thing at a time and make progress step by step, instead of scattering our energies and getting nowhere. Making God the center of our lives puts everything else in its proper place for our attention and energy.
Another tool is our imagination, so that we can focus our attention differently. If we keep looking in the same way in the same places, we may come up empty. The hidden God calls us in a new direction. God is where we least expect Him at times—in routine transactions with others, in the drudgery of daily or weekly chores, at the dinner table on a work day, or cleaning up afterwards with the family. We miss Him because we get lost in getting the job done. We forget to look at all that is happening as we go about the tasks of living. For instance, at the checkout counter, do we notice the people and what they do to serve us? Sure it’s their job, but it’s also a meeting place where God shows us how to create a more civil and humane community. The same holds true for driving, raising legitimate complaints, and helping others. It’s all in the way we do these things, and not just in getting them done. God is hidden in our patience, our courtesy, our ability to listen and even disagree without rancor. His presence can surprise us when we enjoy what we do because we do it together with a purpose bigger than any single person’s desires. When we work for God’s Kingdom rather than our own, everyone prospers with a happier way of life.
So look around and try some new approaches in how we go about our daily life chores. God is playing hide and seek with us, and we may not realize it. Look for His holy presence in what we have to do, and we may be surprised at where and how He turns up. While God always wins, we can enjoy the diving comedy and our role in it.
