You Cannot Hide

Three-and-a-half years ago I was doing wedding counselling for a couple.  They had a two-year-old that joined them for the counselling sessions.  I usually pulled out some of the toys I had in my office for her to play with while we talked.  On one of these occasions I pulled out the nesting dolls that my parents brought me back from Russia.  She played with those dolls for most of the session.  At the end of our time together all she had with her was the top of the largest doll.  She would not tell us where she put them and we spent several minutes scouring my office.  Despite our diligent search and the fact the little girl had not left my office, we could not find them.  We looked again at our next appointment together and Tara even joined in on the search but to no avail.  The top of the largest doll set lonely on my shelf knowing that someday they were sure to reappear.  This morning while looking for some pictures from a previous trip to Malawi I opened a CD case Bro. Paul had given us containing 10 CD’s with all the pictures and videos from our trip.  When I opened the case out came all the pieces from that nesting doll.

That little girl proved to be great at hiding things.  I believe that all of us are good at hiding certain things.  We are good at hiding our brokenness.  We are great at coming to church on Sundays with a smile on our face and a positive answer anytime anyone asks how we are doing.  We hide the sin that we keep returning to.  We hide the brokenness in our family and the distance we feel from our spouse.  We hide the evil desires of our heart or maybe the guilt of painful decisions.  We hide our financial shortcomings as they destroy our peace and joy.  We all have secrets that we are good at hiding from others.

We may be great at hiding these secrets from those around us but we can never hide them from God.  He knows our failures even before we fail.  When we are in the darkest time of our life he is there as a father watching a son destroy themselves.  The very best at hiding their failures from others can never hide their sins for a moment.  But the good news is, when we are in the darkest hour, God is there with the light of Christ.  He forgives us through the blood of Jesus Christ and completely removes that which we have tried to hide.  Stop living with the guilt while trying to pretend the mistakes never happened.  Allow God to take the weight off your shoulders and live in victory because the price has already been paid.