Hide and seek was one of my favorite games to play as a child. My favorite place to hide was the hamper in my Mom and Dad's bedroom. It seemed like the best hiding place in the world. It was dark, cool and cozy. I could even peek through the woven wicker to see if anyone was coming to find me. It was a fun adventure playing, hide-and-seek, but only if my hiding places was within the safety of my hamper hideaway.
In the account in Genesis 28, Jacob is in a life and death game of hide-and-seek. Before Jacob had this dream of a ladder, angels and God and headed out on his journey, he had pretended to be his older brother Esau in the presence of his elderly and almost blind father Isaac. Esau was so angry with Jacob that he had vowed to kill Jacob – so Rebekah their mother sent Jacob away to stay with her brother to hide away until Esau was no longer angry. Jacob intended to hide away in a safe corner of the world until he heard word from his mother that it was safe to come back home.
It seems that when people get caught up in their own games and rivalries, God has a way of bringing them out of hiding. Adam and Eve in the garden tried hiding from God after eating from the tree that was forbidden. The people of Noah's day ignored all warnings to turn back to God and carried on with things as business as usual - only to regret their rejection of Him when the raindrops began to fall. Jonah fled God's calling to go to Nineveh – and tried to hide away on a boat headed in the opposite direction – but God found him.
The doors that God calls us to walk through may be difficult or frightening, but the decision to follow God's lead in direction is safer than being in the hiding places that we're comfortable with. Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden due to their disobedience, Noah's neighbors perished in the great flood, Jonah was tossed overboard and swallowed by a fish, and Jacob was on the run from a brother who hated him so much he was ready and willing to kill him.
In the book, The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, Lucy wanders into a spare room while playing a game of hide and seek with her brothers and sisters. She finds a giant wardrobe in the spare room and decides to hide inside to win the game of hide and seek. Lucy steps further and further back into the wardrobe full of long fur coats to make sure she's properly hidden. To her amazement Lucy finds no back to the wardrobe, but finds herself transported to a totally new world filled with wonder, adventure, challenge and excitement. Lucy accidentally and innocently steps through a door and into a whole new life – all while caught up in a game of hide-and-seek.
Jacob was hiding in the darkness of that field. He was running from the lies he had told, he was running from the wrath of his brother, and he was running from God. Jacob accidentally steps into the doorway of heaven in the midst of his game of hide and seek.
God offers Jacob his protection, presence and promise in his dream that night. The vision Jacob was given allowed him the opportunity to wake up from the status quot. "When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."
Sometime when we least expect it, God shows up in places, relationships and situations and offers a door to a whole new world that we never dreamt of before. Jacob enters into a relationship with God after this dream and begins to trust him to care for all his needs and problems, even though the immediate situation is unchanged. God doesn’t wave a magic wand and immediately restore the conflict and breakdown within Jacob's family, but God promises to be with Jacob no matter what the future brings.
" I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you."
In return, Jacob promises to trust God and give back to God a tenth of all his possessions upon returning home – someday.
Jacob was separated from his family for about 20 years. During that time he married, had children and earned property from his father in law. Jacob would have had to have patience beyond what he ever imagined possible to deal with the challenges of life while he waited upon God to fulfill his promise. When Jacob finally is released from his obligations to his father in law, he prepares to go home and meet his estranged brother Esau. Jacob prays and reminds God of the promises he made to him at Bethel, he sends gifts of animals ahead of him to pacify the possible anger of his brother. After he sends his family off, Jacob was alone – except God comes and wrestles with him all night – Jacob demands a blessing from God before he agrees to let him go. God blesses him and gives him the name Israel. Once Jacob now Israel proceeds to go meet with Esau, knowing he has God's blessing and that has grown beyond games of hide and seek by learning how the struggle with both God and people and still overcome great challenge.
God is better at opening doors than we are willing walk through them at times. We trick ourselves to think the game of hide and seek we're playing with God is real spiritual growth and progress, when in reality it's hiding in hampers and going nowhere fast.
To have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or book written in a foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rilke – Letters to a young poet
Jacob was required to walk through an unexpected door fears when he began his game of hide and seek. It was necessary for Jacob to live into the questions and challenges of life. He could no longer manipulate life or wait around for purpose to find him. He had to learn to live into the questions and situations that weren't worked out yet. Eventually, he developed the ability to trust God even in the questions and wrestling of life. Just like Lucy and her steps in and out of Narnia, Jacob finally returned home ready to follow God through any door.
We too are on a journey just like Lucy in the Narnia series of books by C.S. Lewis and Jacob in the book of Genesis. It's up to us to decide if we are content playing hide-and-seek with God or are we willing to cross the threshold of unexpected doorways. We can know in our hearts that God is with us in the journey as we are reminded that…" I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go... I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you."
There's no knowing all the places that we'll find God working and moving in our journey of faith closer to Him. It's only when we trust God with all our doorways we can say… "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."
Group Questions:
1. What kind of questions do you think Jacob had at the beginning of his journey?
2. How do you trust God in the midst of an unexpected change or door opening?
3. Have you walked through any doors that God has opened?
Was it difficult or easy?
4. Is it easier to play hide-and-seek with God or be a Threshold crosser?
Genesis 28:10-22
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and said:" I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your decedents will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and the east, to the north and the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you."
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it." He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city was called Luz.
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "if God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
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