He's Already in the Hiding Spot

There is a special kind of chaos that exists in a house with kids playing hide and seek. It’s loud before it gets quiet. Someone is counting (badly, because apparently “1…2…3…17…10…14…ready or not!” is an acceptable sequence in this house) and everyone else is scrambling. Doors flying open and the pattering of feet down the halls. I hear whispered arguments about who gets the good spot behind the couch and who gets the laundry basket. Zeta is hiding in the most obvious place in the entire house and genuinely believing she’s invisible.

And then. Quiet. Minus the quiet giggles and “shushing” that comes.

I love that moment. Not just because it’s the only silence I get before 9 PM, which is nice. But because there’s something about being hidden that feels, even in the middle of a silly game, like relief.

Which got me thinking.

David spent years literally hiding in caves and in the wilderness. There was a king who wanted him dead. But what does he keep writing? “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble.” (Psalm 32:7) “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” (Psalm 91:1) He’s not being poetic, he’s writing from inside the cave. From the experience of a man who ran out of options and found that God was already there, waiting, in the hiding place.

When life gets heavy, and it does, and it will, our instinct is rarely to run to God first. We scramble to fix, scroll past, or lie awake at 2 AM rehearsing every way it could get worse. (My brain runs catastrophe simulations like it’s getting paid.) We try everything in the house before we try the hiding spot. All because we forget He’s already there. Psalm 91 doesn’t say run to God when the storm comes. It says dwell. That’s present tense. It’s and ongoing spot. The shelter was built before you knew you’d need it.

Here’s the thing about hide and seek in our house. Sometimes I cheat. I let one of my kids lead me to their spot and fold myself into whatever ridiculous space they’ve chosen. You know; behind a curtain that does not conceal me, under a blanket on the couch in plain sight. But I hide with them. They think this is the greatest thing that has ever happened. Because they’re not alone in the spot. They feel safe with me.

That’s huge.

That’s the incarnation applied to hiding.

God doesn’t stand outside the storm shouting instructions. Nope. He came down. He got in. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14 #favoriteverse) That word dwelt means to pitch a tent or tabernacles with (to move in and among). Which means when you crawl into that place of fear, or exhaustion, or grief…quite simply, you are not alone in there. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3)

Hidden WITH Him. It doesn’t say hidden from Him. WITH Him. Life is going to get loud again. It always does. When the counting starts and you feel the scramble remember: there is a hiding spot already built, He is already in it, and He already knows your name.

Ready or not.