By Mark A. Taylor
If you follow contributing editor Jennifer Johnson”s blog, then you”ve probably already enjoyed a chuckle from a link she posted there last week.
If not, go now to “21 Brilliant Little Children Who Have Absolutely Mastered the Game of Hide and Seek,” and then please come back.
The delight of the pictures is the tendency of toddlers to think they”re hidden if they cover their heads. There they are under the bedspread or behind a sofa cushion or wearing a lampshade, with feet or hands and arms all sticking out in plain sight. But they can”t see us, so they think we can”t see them. If it happened once at home, we”d smile and go on. But the web post teaches us this is just how 2-year-olds are. They haven”t learned that covered eyes don”t guarantee hidden bodies. In the dark they think they”re safe from whoever”s trying to find them. We expect that with maturity they”ll discover better ways to stay safe.
Maybe I”m straining here, but I see some church members and some Christian leaders””and maybe even myself””in those kids hiding underneath a blanket.
It”s so much easier to retreat to my refuge away from non-Christian influence than to face it head-on. At home or at church I think I”m protected from the dangers of a world where the devil stalks his prey like a hungry lion.
But I”m not really safe. I”m still exposed to Satan”s schemes whether I realize it or not. In fact, I”m probably in greater danger while hiding “away from the world” than I might be out there confronting it. I may not know I”m exposed to the subtler (but equally as deadly) dangers of pride or jealousy or self-righteousness when I”ve put a blanket between me and the world.
And then there”s lethargy. Yes, I know the point of hide-and-seek is to HIDE, and any analogy can be pushed too far. But don”t you see some inward-focused churches in these pictures of kids crouched in a corner with their eyes closed? Surrounding my church building are families undermined by infidelity and abuse, men and women desperate for meaning beyond their paychecks, children longing for role models and consistency. I dare say no church building you know is more than 20 minutes away from homelessness, joblessness, addiction, or despair.
How do we make our church a group that offers hope to folks who”ve never seen it? The task seems overwhelming. How much easier and more comforting it is not to think about them but just to huddle away from them. We think we”re safe, but really we”re just in the dark.
I”m thankful for Christians I know and churches we”ve featured at this website who have grown beyond a toddler”s approach to the world around them. These are men and women who know the real darkness is out there, outside of Christ. And our job is not to hide from it, but to penetrate it with the light that just can”t be hidden under a basket””or a sofa cushion.
Mark, well said! An early nose dive of the church was to hide behind the stone walls of isolation in order to spend more time in prayer and study. Both necessary nutrients to a healthy Christian life. Yet, both can lead to being spiritually obese when isolated from on the street evangelism among those that are on the run from you and the Lord. The Lord’s eyes go from east to west and there is no hiding, so the blessed are those that get out from behind the sanctuary doors, and are truly seeking the Lost; they are smelly, dirty, obnoxious and lost. They are not trophies to hang on the mantle. They the only true source of great saints, That is the name of our game.