Peek-A-Boo

Being a parent is one of the best occupations in this world if only because, through my son, I am given a glimpse into the heart of God for us.

Jace has recently been giving his dad quizzical looks when I'm talking to him. More often than not I find I've been making some sort of face and maybe he's not able to place how he should feel, or react emotionally, to the face. When I notice this, my first instinct is to flash him a smile lest he think my love for him has somehow gone away.

At eight months old, I doubt his thoughts go much deeper than that (and, honestly, probably not even that deep since love is an action-based concept that doesn't come naturally to us). Right now his needs are security that his needs will be met and an environment of relative familiarity with opportunities for exploration and discovery. If that security or environment is disrupted in his mind, all he knows is literally going away from him. He doesn't know where, or why, or have any concept of duration. What he does know is that what was once there now is not. And that is scary.

Have you wondered at how ridiculous the game of Peek-A-Boo is to us adults but how young babies can be surprised over and over again? When I peek out from behind a blanket or large toy and say, "Here I am," I take such joy from watching his little eyes dart from wherever they are looking back to me. Even more enjoyable is when he checks a few locations before looking directly at me, like I had somehow moved to some place else.

It seems this is the way we interact with God sometimes. Though we consider ourselves more intelligent than children, and more capable of dealing with abstract concepts than they are, our relationship with the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth is like a strange game of Peek-A-Boo. Even for those of us who have met God before, we sometimes need to be reminded where He is. When life's circumstances - unprovoked or self-inflicted - take a turn for the worst, we do what we do with our own friends and family: deflect the responsibility we hold and angrily ask, "where WERE you? Why did you abandon me? How could you let this happen to me?"

In this way, we are much like the children we see as below ourselves. Our understandings on God more often have to do with opinions, questions, feelings, culture, and past atrocities than on what God says about His own nature. Even in saying 'Him' I know some get hung up on their own issues instead of coming to God as God is. A feminist theologian uses the feminine imagery for God in the Bible as a battle-ax to destroy the faith of an earnest believer who mistakenly thinks of God as a flesh-and-blood man, and walks home smugly justified - not aware of, or unconcerned by, the harm they've caused. A woman with a bad childhood says she can't follow God because if God's a father, she wants nothing to do with Him. A man with a complex uses God as a hammer to beat others into submission to his will, not God's. A family lost a loved one so if Christians talk about a loving God who wants the best for us, they do the math and arrive at "you can have Him." Examples are, unfortunately, endless. The pains are real - I don't mean to make light of them - and if we're not careful we will construct a picture of God that is caricature-, not character-, driven.

We intuitively know what being judged based on stereotypes, false or incomplete information, ignorance or malice feels like. We are right to hate such condemning glances in our direction. And yet it is the way of our world, one we inarguably succumb to where others are concerned. We miss when we treat others in this fashion, and we miss when we treat God in this way. God is the easy target, the laughable fall-guy who doesn't hit back because, hey, He's not really there anyway. And if He is, He stopped caring a long time ago and enjoys long walks on a faraway beach and celestial nap time. So we judge God not on what is true, not on what is revealed in the Bible, but on the mistakes of His followers. It's easier that way: no excuses can atone, no level of ignorance can cover it up, and most importantly no work has to be done on the part of the accuser. Just tow the historical line of those who rejected Jesus long before your grandparents were around.

Peek-A-Boo.

I wonder what God thinks of when we open our eyes each morning to the wonders He created and yet refuse to see Him in them. Scripture tells us both that God is patient and loving with us and one day will allow us to, proverbially, lie in whatever bed we've made. He tells us He delights to save. He wants all to turn to Him. He watches us ignore Him and flout His commands and is patient and loves us anyway. But He also says the pride of the arrogant before Him will be their undoing. He will not allow people to get away with making a mockery of His name forever (talking to believers and non-believers). He is showing Himself to us and calling us to get up and follow but we are blind, deaf, and lame.

We look around and we don't see Him. If it takes even minimal work to know what God wants from us, work like reading the Bible to see His desires, it's just too much. But God is right there: in front of us, beside us, behind us, surrounding us, and if we look where He has told us we will surely find Him. Unfortunately, too many act like because we need to look at all, it's like a game of hide and seek ("why is God hiding?") or since it's too difficult to find God it can't be true ("why do I have to read - why can't God just show Himself to me? Then I'll believe.").

Peek-A-Boo.

God isn't hard to find - He's revealed Himself in the Bible. Our objections to His followers have prevented us from meeting Him. Have you ever refused to meet a person because one of their friends is a brute, or a jerk, or ignorant? Why do we do this with God? I believe it's because doing so is easier. Learning is difficult, and takes effort. Sustaining ignorant prejudice is effortless. As we look to God, He does not hide consequences of our selfish, sinful ways but reminds us that His love for us hasn't gone anywhere.

Familiarity with our environment comes with learning, not through osmosis or wishing it so. Can we honestly say that familiarity with God comes through some other means than what is learned? Special revelation is at the desire of God (not the demand of man or woman) but it is not His primary means of revelation to us. The gift God gives us - after the initial gift of being known by us and knowing us - is the excitement of exploring the greatness of God and discovering new-to-us truths that were not known beforehand. When we stop the search, when WE turn from the notice of God, it can appear that God has gone away.

And that's scary. Peek-A-Boo.

God has not left us. We have turned away from God. We must return to God, turn our eyes to look on His smile, and incline our ears to hear His commands and loving welcome. If we choose not to, then the consequences belong to us, and we are to blame. And that is scary.