Hiding from God

The traditional reading for Yom Kippur ("Day of Atonement"--just ten days from now) is the book of Jonah. This is the story of a man who tried to hide from God. Hiding...several things (a blog post, a movie, old journal entries) have echoed this theme today.

Have you ever hid from God? I believe I have. In friends. In knowledge and Bible studies (ironic, isn't it?). In various distractions. The thing about hiding from God is it usually involves hiding from yourself as well. That makes it hard to detect--and even harder to correct. But God can help you come out into the light, if you ask Him.

Today is Yom Teruah--Day of Trumpets. On this day the trumpet sounds calling to our hearts and piercing to our soul: "Prepare for the coming our King!" How do we prepare? We must lay open our hearts before Him. We must strip ourselves of our pride. Your grades, your art, your career, your friends, your family, your wealth, your knowledge, your good works...I could go on--all must be laid down before we enter the presence of our King. We must approach in humility, laying down our crowns of gold and our crowns of thorns before Him. When it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is His faithfulness and His mercy.

As I read through some old journal entries, I am noticing a pattern. God has revealed Himself to me when I lay my heart bare before Him--when I acknowledge my faults, my guilt, my confusion and cry out sincerely to hear His voice. When I hand over everything--my past, my present, and my future--to Him. He is there waiting to reveal Himself to us. But maybe He's waiting for us to reveal ourselves to Him.

My desire is to pursue God with all my heart--to chase after the Ruach. But sometimes I wonder, who is really chasing who? Perhaps, in a sense, God is chasing after His bride. Shall we hide from Him any longer?