Found!

Our little grandsons, ages two and four, are just learning how to play hide and seek. Honestly, they are pretty bad at it. The little one doesn’t even try to hide. He just lays in the middle of the biggest room he can find with his eyes closed. The four year old will hide but the minute you call his name, he answers. Keller, where are you? I’m here Mosa, in your room. As I near my room, I hear him laughing and calling my name. When I open the door, there he is, sitting in a tiny rocking chair in the corner, smiling, so delighted to be found.

In a recent Jesus Calling entry, the base scripture was from Deuteronomy 4:29, But if from there you will seek the Lord your God, you will find God if you look with all your heart and with all your soul. The opening devotional line was as if God was speaking: Seek Me with your whole being, I desire to be found by you. (Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young. September 1)

I read those words and flashed back to my two little loves, so bad at Hide and Seek and just so excited to be found. I smiled thinking of how both little guys helped me find them, one by not hiding at all and other other by answering my first call and letting me know exactly where to find him. I loved just following the sounds of his excited laughter.

If you seek God…you will find God. It’s a promise of scripture.

The rest of the devotional was about the reality suffering, pain and difficulty in life and how the reasons for that are shrouded in mystery. We do not know why evil or difficulty exists. We do know God is with us in it.

In seminary, I learned that more books have been devoted to the problem of suffering than any other theological topic. These aren’t little bitty, thin, easy beach reads. These are big giant hefty books with small print and the best Biblical and Theological scholars working on this through the generations, over time and cultures. Do you know what they all say? We do not know. We cannot yet see that mystery. Our eyes are clouded in this life. Now we see in a mirror, dimly.

Are you having a rough go of it? Are you in pain? Suffering loss? Experiencing evil and injustice and trauma right before your eyes? You aren’t alone. You absolutely are not alone.

And in even all that pain our God wants us not to try to figure it all out but rather to just seek; just look; just call out God’s name.

Something deep in my soul tells me God plays Hide and Seek just like my grandsons, badly, so ready to be found.

Dr. Cindy Ryan is a pastor, wife, mother of three, breast cancer survivor and Mosa to Keller, Pace and one on the way. To read more blogs, to see upcoming speaking events and to learn how to join the weekly Jesus Calling Prayer Call she co-hosts go to http://www.drcindyryanblog.com.