Page 22 - Hide and Seek
P. 22

Chapter One                                                                   Chapter Four

         Stay away from encounters that require you to expose your-
         self and interact.  Words like truth and confession are not a
         part of your vocabulary.  I’m okay and you’re okay, as long
         as we don’t have to be open and honest.  Don’t tell me any
         secrets, so I can keep my secrets to myself.


         Unfortunately, the church does not show up on most rosters
         as a place to avoid confrontational truth.  Many have found
         that the church is a refuge from reality.  Pulpits have
         become a platform for discussion rather than direction,

                                                                                                     oses was born as a candidate for hiding.
         for rationalization instead of repentance.                                     M
                                                                                                     When he was three months after birth, his
                                                                                                     Hebrew mother instructed his sister to hide
                                                                                                     him in a water basket, among the bulrushes,
         Growing up, my family lived in the parsonage next door to                      of the Nile.  Soon after he was placed in the hiding basket
         the church, and I feared the invisible voice of conviction, as                 the daughter of Pharaoh would draw him out the Nile and
         I walked through the church sanctuary, after one of my                         hide him safely away.  Moses would be raised as a son of
         common adolescent misdemeanors. Today, there is little,                        Pharaoh not knowing his true identity.  He was given tutors
         if any reverent fear of God, as throngs race across the                        and counselors to teach him Egyptian customs and culture.
         thresholds to rush in and out for a one-hour session with                      He had no sense of his Hebrew roots, and no connection to
         God.  Most people don’t expect to have an encounter with                       where he came from.
         God.  Surely, they don’t expect for their life to be exposed
         and examined in God’s presence.  People that drop by the
         doctors office  to simply visit with the medical staff are nev-
         er nervous because they know they will go home in the same                     Many of us stumble into adulthood not knowing who we are
         unexamined condition in which they came in.                                    in God.  With no sense of our true heritage, the connection
                                                                                        to our spiritual origin has been broken.  We’ve been
                                                                                        groomed by the mentors of the world around us.  At birth,
                                                                                        the Psalmist says we are shaped in iniquity and conceived in
         Saints and sinners should tremble as we enter into the                         sin. (Psalm 51:5)  Sin and deception have shrouded us from
         place of true worship.  In the Gospel of John, chapter four,                   our true purpose in life.
         Jesus said to a Samaritan woman, that the true worshippers
         would no longer worship vainly in the mountain of her
         forefathers, or among the fruitless, ceremonial, traditions
         of Jerusalem’s temple, but the true worshippers would
         worship God in spirit and truth.

         Real worship allows us to see our true self as we
         acknowledge the true God!

             22   Hide And Seek                                                                                                    Hide And Seek      33
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