Hiding Places

            Our oldest son was born checking out the world. Not crying much at all, but looking around at the newness of the delivery room.

             His inquisitive spirit was never dampened either. From the time he was mobile, he was intent on exploring his world.

            He’d crawl, he’d climb, he’d run…in fact, often disappearing into thin air at the blink of an eye. I can’t tell you how many times he would somehow wiggle away from us and take off on his own. It was frightening…always.

            One afternoon when our son was about three, he did his disappearing act again. We were at home…had just finished lunch…and probably I had implied that it was naptime. No sooner had I looked away than he vanished, nowhere to be found. I searched the house, the yard, the neighborhood. Then I called the neighbors within a half-mile radius. No one had seen him.

            My husband was still at home for lunch, and was panicked as I was.  Together we searched every place again. Nothing.

            Finally, at the point of calling the police, I looked outside where the garbage cans sat. Behind the cans was a large box, an empty one, that we had left out for the trash man to pick up the next day. I wondered…then I opened it only to find my sleeping child crouched down inside it. He had wanted to play a joke on us, but the box was so wonderfully warm that he settled in for a nap.

            Exploring outside the boundaries of what God says is safe, can lead us into some dangerous places indeed. And when we’re in those places, we can have a false sense of security.

The Psalmist is aware that we can’t truly hide anyway. In Psalm 139:7-12 , The Message paraphrases that famous scripture like this:

“Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit— to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
    If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
    to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
    You’re already there waiting!”

And in Psalm 17 we read the Psalmist’s prayer, “Keep your eye on me [God]; hide me under your cool wing feathers.”