Ready or Not

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD." Jeremiah 29:13-14

Three things came clear while I was praying through Jeremiah, and they came in this order. Not for disaster. Look for me. I will be found by you.

And what filled my heart when I read them was not a doctrine. It was hide and seek with my kids. Little feet scampering across hardwood. The perfect hiding spot, which is never as perfect as they think. And then that moment when you call out, here I come, ready or not.

They always give themselves away. That is the part I keep turning over. The giggle from behind the curtain, the foot sticking out from under the blanket. They are not trying to win. They want to be found. Everything in them is straining toward the moment you pull the door open and say, there you are.

Young children love being found. It is not until we get older that we make it harder to be found.

Somewhere along the way the game changes. We learn to hide better. We learn to hold still and hold our breath and let the footsteps pass by. We learn that being found might cost us something, and so we get very, very good at not being found, and we call it privacy, and we call it strength, and we call it managing.

And then we wonder why God feels far away.

Maybe hide and seek was never meant to be won. Maybe it was always about bringing us together.

He says, I will be found by you. He does not say, I will find you and drag you out. He says he will be found. He is not hunting. He is seeking a person who wants to be discovered.

So here is the year. Here is the whole thing, and everything else that follows is a footnote to it. God is not looking for you the way a man looks for lost keys. He is looking for you the way a father looks for a child who is dying to be found.

The question is not whether he is seeking.

The question is whether you still want to be found.