Hide and Seek love game with God

If Jesus is the bridegroom and we are the bride, then we have a romantic love relationship with God. In this offering I want to share one of the love games that God plays with us and later also share on true relationships with God in part 2.

I shared on my Facebook (FB) Status that “ Christianity is like Hide-and-Seek game with God. God seeks you and when He finds you, He hides and you have to seek Him. Sometimes when you have messed around like Adam and hid, God comes seeking you.” I then learnt from some of the boys’ comments that us, men, miss a lot in our relationship with God due to our ignorance or masculine pride (imposed by culture) not to tap into the emotional world that God also live in. One brother in FB asked how God can hide if He said He would never leave us. It’s not hiding with an intention not to be found but hiding while wishing to be seeked and found. It doesn’t make sense logically but I love it and understand it from the emotional/romantic point of view. It is just like playing hard-to-get with someone who knows they are loved or they love you.

At a marriage and relationship seminar, the pastor asked all the men “which of you love and enjoy watching chick flicks?” Of course I was the only crazy person in the room. And he also asked the women, “which of you love action movies?”. Few hands were raised. I am really concerned about the romance in our relationships with our partners and worse with God. After many failures in relationships, I had to seek this knowledge and now I understand why a woman would complain about something while meaning something else which you can only find out if you love her. I remember my friend who left a girlfriend that he loved so much after finding out that it wasn’t true that her father was sick or passed away. It is the same thing with God who first loves you then He hides so that in pursuing Him, you show your love for Him and get the benefits. I personally don’t want a gloomy religious rigid textbook legalistic relationship with God. It must be alive with emotions and love games!

As I am studying love through the Holy Spirit, I learnt that love does not insist in its own way (1 Cor.13). You will realise that God made women (emotionally orientated) and men (logically orientated) different on purpose. In order to love, one must be willing to understand the other from their world point of view; Gary Chapman would call this speaking your spouse’s love language (not yours). Ephesians 5:21-33 shows us that men and women need to be submissive to one another as equals. In fact this is a requirement for any relationship including that of God and us. God is submissive to us < hooooooo! How dare he says that!> . I was shocked after reading a scripture When Moses advised God in

Exodus 32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

God is not proud and egoistic because He is not a male-figure that we picture Him to be. It takes meekness to love and I am glad that The Most Humble, God, demonstrated this by coming into our world and be one of us, to win our love. Here is one of the highlights of an affectionate God pursuing His lover:-

It was only “logical”/”reasonable” for a man like Peter to try and protect his friend, Jesus, from death :-

Matthew 16:22-23 ... "Heaven forbid, Lord," he said. "This will never happen to You!"

but Jesus replied

(23) Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Get away from Me, Satan!

Wow! Now can we apply logic of what the words get away mean? Should I define what “Satan” means? Of course not, This was an emotional reaction of a man in love who felt like somebody is trying to stop him from pursuing ( seeking) His lover ( the Church).

God is crazy about you! He is madly in love with you and He was willing to do all these crazy things on Easter for you!

Personally, I have a non-religious relationship with God where He sometimes sends me messages that He misses me and I would go lock myself in the room to spend time with Him. I told you that I did not choose God, He came and persistently loved me with blessings when I was busy sinning. I was never taught this before, I thought we give our lives to God and then live holy life for God to favour us. It is not hard to tell from anybody who knows me that the Lord loves me and I am not even a good person!

The offering is one of the results from my personal relationship with God, not some theories that I read from people’s books. Two years back, I sensed a shift in the spirit as if God has left me. I was devastated and started looking for Him, crying in prayer, “what have I done Lord? Please come back, I would stop smoking or anything, must I sacrifice my mother as burnt offering so you can come back…?” I was just frustrated. I then searched hard trying to live right, studying the Word, buying tapes and listening to about three messages a day… until I found this scripture ( and one of the ministers was preaching on it) :-

Psalms 13:1 How much longer will you forget me, LORD? Forever? How much longer will you hide yourself from me?

God hides!

I study David, who wrote the above scripture, and I find him to have lived a new covenant life during the old covenant. David understood God deeply through the relationship they had by seeking Him. God called David “a man after my own heart” (1Sam. 13:14):- being after something suggests chasing it. David was a warrior, a king, Shepard , poet, musician e.t.c. In case you don’t know, musicians/poets are emotional people who write and perform what they deeply feel inside. David longed for the ark (presence) of God that when it arrived he removed royal robes and wore only an ephod while dancing insanely! This was so crazy that his wife, Micah, despised him… I believe it’s because she married him for the status she gets when he is a king and a warrior hero but not the servant or the man in mad love with God. … I think it was an arranged marriage but anyway…

David was a man who knew how to express his feelings and he is the greatest king ever to live. I believe it is only those men who doubt their masculinity by acting all Rambo and emotionless; which is inhuman. I don’t think even women love that… let me get out of line a bit …ok let me be merciful today…

David and God are not soft by expressing affections. God has created us with emotions like his and from my experience, God plays hide-and-seek love games with us because He has called us into a romantic love relationship.

Jeremiah 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

I am glad that the mysteries and powers of God are not for the proud. Jesus spoke in parables so that the proud (hardened = Mat. 13:15) may not hear/understand but only the meek who would chase after Him for explanations would inherit the Kingdom of God. If you are proud, you wouldn’t chase after God but would be content with obeying biblical laws and being praised/respected by people that you are a good Christian meanwhile you don’t know God and He doesn’t know you either. Salvation was just God finding you but now you must seek Him!

PS: Sometimes I write long offerings on purpose so that only those who seek God may find Something about Him!