We cannot hide from God

A dirt road separated our chicken and hog farm from the angus beef farm of Mr. John Strozier, who my granddaddy liked a lot and was a good neighbor with.
Between our two farms was a large corridor – not quite a forest – of thick woods, mostly pine trees and underbrush. Some of it was easily passable; but other places were not, especially for boys without a machete.
We called those woods, “Strozier’s Woods” and Mr. Strozier was more than gracious to let us play in them and camp in them, and build forts in them.
One summer – I know it was summer because my cousin Jeff was visiting from Atlanta – me, my brother Tim and Jeff decided to explorer the deeper recesses of Strozier’s Woods, going far beyond our usual haunts.
With canteens of water and sticks to beat back the underbrush, we began our descent into Strozier’s Woods. There were places we had to lie on bellies and crawl through the brush, giving not one thought to rodents or snakes or chiggers. There were places we had to use our sticks to beat through the brush, clearing a little walking path. At one point, we even had to climb one of the pine trees and jump to a spot more clear.
It was such a great adventure for three pre-adolescent boys with nothing to do on a summer day.
As we got deeper into the woods, the canopy of the pine trees cast an eerie and kind of dark pallor over us, and as we were walking along, my brother Tim noticed something to our right, several sections of pine trees stacked up like a wall.
That certainly deserved investigation, and so we walked over to it, and then realized it had walls! And, it had a bit of a roof on it – some pine sections covered with pine straw. And, we continued walking around it – not sure what we would see at the opening, which faced a dense part of the woods.
Around the short corner we went, and peeked inside, fully expecting to see a skeleton.
Instead, we saw a collection of beer cans and glass liquor bottles.
We ran out of the woods, finding the dirt road that separated our farm from Mr. Strozier’s, and we beat a path to find our grandfather. We needed to report this “hideout” we had discovered.
When we told our papa, he told us to never go back that deep into the woods, and to stay away from that place.
A few years later, when I was older, I went back down into those woods and the hideout was gone. The boards were scattered and the mess cleaned up.

I don’t know whose hideout it was, but it was someone’s secret place to hide from the world and indulge in self.

Whoever built the hideout likely did so alone – a place to escape from the world. They carefully sought a place hidden within dense woods, away from roads and away from people. It was a place to go, to get away, to find solace in the darkness of self-retreat.
And, yet what that person failed to know and realize was this: God was there.
God was there in the selection of the place. God was there in the placement of each pine tree branch. God was there in the slipping away to the place. God was there in the lies that led to the place. God was there when the top came off the bottle. God was there in the self-indulgence. God was there in the depression and the self-pity. God was there in the guilt that came after the sin. God was there.
We all have those hideouts, don’t we? I know people who sneak around and do all sorts of things, forgetting that God is literally right there with them. I’ve done it, too – still do it some. I know people whose “hideout” is sitting in front “the screens” computer, television, smart pad and smart phone consumed with self-indulgence, forgetting that God is there, too.

On a scout campout, when I was in the 9^th Grade, some of the older boys brought their Playboy and Penthouse magazines. Unbeknownst to me, one of those boys stuck the April 1974 issue of Playboy into my backpack, and I discovered it when I got home. I didn’t throw it away; I kept it – put it under my bed. I cleaned my own room; my mama would never find it. Sadly, the scars of sin hang around – I can tell you the name of that centerfold to this day – she made a big impression on me.
But, that summer, while I was away – on a church trip, no less – my mama did clean out from under my bed and she did discover Miss Marlene Morrow.
When I came home, I walked in my room to find the magazine neatly in the center of my bed. As I turned around, my dad stood there. He said, “You need to get rid of that. Your mama went screaming through the house that we raising a smut king.”
I was so ashamed and guilt-stricken – I couldn’t stand to be around my mama for days. She didn’t say a word about it until one day she said, “There are no secrets from God. Not one. You can hide your life from people, but you will never hide not one passing thought from God.”

Like you, I’ve done a lot of things in the past 52 years – some I was able to keep hidden; some not. But, regardless, there is no hiding anything from God. There is no hideout. There are no dark places beyond the vision of Almighty God.

The heart beats our life, doesn’t it? It is the source of our life, and Scripture over and over defines our heart as the center place – the HQ – for our moments of triumph in the Spirit and for our moments of wickedness.
Matthew 15:7-8 says, “We might praise Him with our mouths, but it may be that our hearts are far from Him.” And, in Matthew 5:27-28, “We might refrain from committing adultery with our bodies, but it is still possible to commit adultery with our hearts.”
Jesus said, in Luke 16:15: “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
We can’t pull the wool over God eyes. Psalm 90:8 – “You have kept our hidden sins under the light of your scrutiny.” Matthew 23:28: “You outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
After lamenting the inexplicable dark mystery of the human heart (“the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt”), Jeremiah cried out, “Who can understand it?” But, God immediately replied, “I, the Lord, search the mind and try the heart.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10). We are not stuck forever with the limitations and defects of our hearts, if we confidently entrust them to Him who is greater than our hearts.

Nothing is hidden from God. There are no hideouts. If you are burdened by self-focused action, self-focused thinking, self-focused talking – now is the time to clean it up. God knows. And, God may not allow you to live in private, continuing to sin as if no one is watching. My mama likes to say, “God will not allow one of His to continue ignoring Him and living in unrepentant sin.” You may find your hiding place discovered by a group of boys or by your mama cleaning under your bed. Turn from The Hideout. Seek a new refuge in the Lord, throw yourself into the company of other believers, and remove from your life the distractions that keep you from following Jesus and listening to the Holy Spirit within you. In the light is where we are called to live. And only in the light can we find peace, joy, love and hope.