Hiding in Plain Sight

Hiding in Plain Sight
Written by: Jill G

“I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me if I couldn’t be found.”    
     – Isaiah 45:19

I thank God for the leaders of this church, the scribes of the Bible, and followers past and present who have labored so that God’s character can be known to us.  While there are mysteries of God that we can never know, there are also great revelations and life instructions available to us all, if we just open ourselves to receive.  We have every tool and practice at our disposal to have life’s most universal and personal questions answered authoritatively and clearly.

I have the privilege of being part of a Radical Mentoring group this season. One of the commitments of this program is that we are asked to read a new book each month and complete assignments that allow us to explore a variety of biblical topics and principles more deeply.  Full confession: I love to read, but not all the books that I’ve had to read have been a win for me. Some I’ve found myself kicking and screaming my way through, with the main lesson being “shut your mouth and finish it because others with far more wisdom and spiritual maturity than me said to do it!” (which is a lesson I still need to practice). However, this month’s book for women is “In His Image”. It aligns perfectly with Sunday’s message on Godly Character (Romans 5:1-5).

The author Jen Wilkins writes, ‘God does not hide his character or his will from his children. As an earthly parent, I do not tell my kids, ‘There is a way to know and please me. Let’s see if you can figure out what it is.” If I do not conceal myself or my will from my earthly children, how much more our heavenly Father? His character and his will do not need discovering. They are in plain sight.  But to know him and see it, we need to start asking better questions that deal with his primary concern. We often seek God for his will by asking, “What should I do?”, but to truly know God and his will for our lives, we need to instead ask, “Who should I be?”.  

Plain and simple, God’s will for our lives is for us to be more like him. He wants us to model ourselves after Jesus–the only perfect human to walk the earth. God’s will for our lives is that as his image-bearers, we reflect him to the world accurately and fully. God’s will is that we develop and display his very character: that we, too, become holy, loving, good, just, merciful, gracious, patient, truthful and wise.

God’s character and will is never hidden from us.  Disciples are given the information, tools and practices to know and follow him well. When we come to church, we get to enter into God’s presence alongside other believers in praise and thanksgiving and hear the inspired word of God, made plain for us by a true disciple. Our church leadership has also blessed us with a simple and accessible plan to deepen our discipleship. The tools they have shared with us are not oppressive, exclusive, expensive, or inaccessible. On the contrary, they offer us a path to a meaningful relationship with the Lord, for anyone who is willing to forego other worldly lures and distractions and invest in our spiritual selves. We are invited into the house of God each month to Pray First together–to release the floodgates of heaven over our lives and community. We can learn to strengthen our prayer lives through God’s own word with the help of the Lectio-365 app. We are encouraged to join Crews and Radical Mentoring groups, so that we are not isolated and irrelevant, but connected brothers and sisters who are held accountable, and make ourselves available for each other to help apply the word of God in our real and complex lives. We are asked to fast–a spiritual discipline that, like all the disciplines, in the natural world appears to be a huge sacrifice, but in the supernatural is only good.  Lastly, we are reminded to serve so that all of the wisdom, knowledge and insight from the previous practices is not hoarded for ourselves, but shared freely within and throughout our communities. These designated practices allow us to know God’s character, who He has created us to be, and to live out our learning.

With all we have available to us, we are left with few good excuses for not knowing Jesus. But we humans are stubborn. “Listen to me you stubborn people who are so far from doing right. For I am ready to set things right, not in the distant future, but right now!” (Isaiah 46: 12-13). As Pastor Marco said, “We quit what we should endure, and we endure what we should quit.” We fight, kick and scream against the very things that God wants to use to mold and bless us. We arrogantly believe “we got this” while taking our marriages, our families, our finances and our futures into our own hands, only to rapidly return to Him begging and pleading to fix the messes we make when we try to operate as his created in his creation, without Him.

Let’s be stubborn but for the right things. Let’s stubbornly, persistently, doggedly invest in knowing this Jesus. Then let’s take it further. Let’s stubbornly be like this Jesus that we claim is our Lord and Savior. Let’s embrace every struggle, knowing that on the other end of it, if we do persist, we will be a little closer to being the image bearers that He intended us to be.

“Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.  
Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong.
 Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them.  
Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.”
 –Isaiah 55: 6-7

“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you
and leads you along the paths you should follow.”
  –Isaiah 48:17