What is lost will always be found
My children love playing hide and seek. Their hiding spots are rarely hard to find, but that’s the point. Their favorite part is being found.
In the larger human experience, our game of hide-and-seek is no longer playful but rooted in deep shame and self-hate. We make a mistake—sometimes a grave one—and unless we’re extremely healthy and whole, we run and hide, from anyone and everything, especially God.
Depending on the degree to which we view God as angry judge waiting for a chance to pounce, our hiding becomes more complex, but even in the midst of our unworthiness, we cling to the hope of being found—and sometimes—found out.
And the track record of God in Three on finding the lost, hiding in fear and perceived rejection, is perfection. The Father is a master restorer and reclaimer.
For biblical reference, consider just a handful of instances: He calls Adam and Eve out of the bushes and out of shame, He sends a messenger for Gideon cowering away from trouble, the Savior calls the demonic on the seashore by name, and Jesus crosses into Samaria to redeem a woman living in complete rejection.
When Christ tells the powerful parable of the lost sheep, He’s simple explaining—in practical terms—the Father’s modus operandi. He will cross seas and valleys and the reach into our deepest darkness to reclaim those that are His—everyone one of us.
And deep down, we long for this, even in our shame and doubt and anxiety. We long for the Father to find us, wrap arms around us and whisper to us, “Welcome home. You belong with Us.”
And this is the reason Jesus came, a plan agreed upon by consensus vote of Three before the world was formed and Adam and Eve took that first bite from the tree.
I imagine the words, “When Our beloved hide from a false belief that there is something that can separate them from Our eternal love, We will come and find them in that lie and bring them home with Us.”
What if something is happening light years beyond our blind retelling of the story of God butchering His boy? What if we spent the rest of our lives believing the truth Paul is trying to hammer home: God was in Christ reconciling the world to Him? How would that change and reshape our view of an angry Judge to a loving Father—His true nature.
Doesn’t it allow us to not just view Jesus as the Good Shepherd, but to recognize that He is modeling the example of His Father? After all, Jesus only does what He sees His Father doing. And what does His Father do? Seek. Find. Save.
We will hide. They will seek. We will be found. For many, the reality feels terrifying, but in the face of a God of pure love, nothing could be more satisfying.
My kids are right—being found is the best part.