Sunday Special: Out of hiding.

I love this scene from the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve have just eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They hide from God. And when asked what happened, Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent. Neither of these two is ready to acknowledge their guilt. Somebody else is to blame.

Isn't that a story of our lives? So often I do something utterly stupid, something that I most definitely chose to do, and instead of just acknowledging my guilt, I can find a thousand ways of explaining why this has happened, often finding another person to blame. And on a top of that, fully aware of the insufficiency of my explanations, I hide from God. Deep down I know I messed up, so I stop praying, feeling so unworthy of coming to Him. Like Adam and Even, hiding from God in the garden.

Where are you? asks God. Every single time He wants to find me. He reaches out to me so that I can come out of hiding with a heart ready to repent and change. God wants us to be in the light of his presence.

Lord knows everything, sees everything and knows that we will fail Him because of our weak nature. But Jesus still chose the cross. He chose to redeem us, because His love is greater than any sin. It's a source of constant consolation for me that God's chosen people, like David or St Peter, where far form the ideal of holiness and yet they came out of their hiding. They faced God fully aware of their insufficiency and received an abundance of grace.

I guess my message, that has touched me so profoundly today, is to stand in front of God and lay your life before Him. It doesn't matter that it's messy, He will take it and heal it. But you need to get out of the place you are hiding in.