“The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’ Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?” (Acts 17:27-20 The Message Bible)
Back when families played together in the house, one of the games was hide and seek. As a parent, I remember playing that game with our children and the rule was that you could not hide outside the house. The children would hide everywhere in the house, and they hid very good! They hid in closets, clothes hampers, under piles of clothes (obviously placed there for décor purposes), in the corner of the shower, behind headboards, and even in the washer. Good thing we found them!
When it was our turn as parents to hide, we would find places to hide and when we heard the children scurrying in the wrong direction in search of us, after coming so near, I would wait a few minutes and then make a bird-type noise, “Qua! Qua!” (Hey! It was my sound, so let me spell it like I think it should be spelled! Smile!) Once the children heard my noisy sound, intended to serve as a hint to where we were hiding, they would come running and asking as if their blood pressures were running high, “Where they at? Where they at? I heard them!” Oh, it was so hard to keep from laughing.
One time, still playing by the rules, for we did not go outside, we hid in the car parked in the attached garage. I don’t think they ever found us as we were crouched down below the windows. They opened the garage door and looked, but they just did not go far enough. After running around the house and not finding us, they would hear my sound, “Qua! Qua!” Hence, they came back into the garage and finally found us in the car. Those were fun days! No electronic games or personal cell phones or I-Pads to separate us! There was no TV in every room! We had fun!
The point of sharing this story on this Sunday morning is that somebody in your house needs to know where they can find God today. Not everybody knows that He is not far from us. He is just a cry away, day or night. You know that and I know that, I think, but others need to know.
God has blessed us all during the past week, including those who have stopped looking for Him and those who were derailed by the devices of contemporary times. So, let the whole household know, “You can still find Him! He wants you to find Him! By the way, make some noise about going to church this morning! Don’t say “Qua! Qua! Say, “Let us go into the house of the Lord!” Be blessed!
“I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’” (Psalm 122:1 KJV)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King