My Favorite Hiding Place

I loved playing hide-and-seek as a child. Especially when we had friends over: they didn’t know about my best hiding spots! The empty shelf waaay in the back of the closet in Dad’s study, behind all the outdated coats and jackets. If I curled up in the fetal position, I fit perfectly.

Or the upstairs crawlspace, with the secret door behind my sister’s bed, which led like a tunnel into the study.

Or the Narnia-like wardrobe in the back corner of the basement, colossal enough to imagine it really could transport you into other worlds, complete with friendly fauns and white witches.

As I hit my teens, the game of hide-and-seek lost its thrill, but I still had a knack for finding good hiding spots. I don’t mean dim crawlspaces and oversized closets.

If the human race is divided into two categories - those who fight and those who take flight - then my temperament definitely puts me in the latter. When conflict rears its head, it takes every last nerve I have to step forward, instead of scanning the horizon for someplace to hide until the coast is clear.

I’ve learned the tricks to hiding in plain sight: in a good book, in silence, in Zumba class, in turning off my phone. Of course, reading and exercise are good things! Except when I use them to escape what I don’t want to feel or do or face.

There are things that God has clearly told me to flee: sexual immorality, idolatry, greed, youthful lusts (see 1 Cor. 6:18, 1 Cor. 10:14, 1 Tim. 6:9-11, 2 Tim. 2:22). Not once does He tell me to flee challenging circumstances, trying relationships, frustrating conversations, my own stressful thoughts and emotions.

As God has gently revealed my tendency toward this flight reaction, He has also graciously shown me something surprising in His Word: He has already provided a hiding place for me, safer and more certain than any I could ever discover myself. 

He is my hiding place.

He is: 

… a shield surrounding me. ~ Psalm 5:12 

… my rock/fortress/defender, saving me from my enemies. ~ Psalm 18:1-3, 31:3, 62:6-7 

… my defense and refuge. ~ Psalm 59:16-17

… my rescuer. When I’m in trouble, he hides me in Himself. ~ Psalm 27:5

… my hiding place and protector. ~ Psalm 32:7

… like a mother bird, sheltering me close beneath her wing.  ~ Psalm 57:1 61:4

In fact, “[my] life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

So when that flight instinct kicks in? 

I turn to God, the most secure, most comforting, best hiding place that I have ever known. Whatever hard conversation or person or event I face, I know that I do so from beneath His sheltering wing, from behind His shield which surrounds me, from within the strong refuge of God Himself.

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
He shall cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you shall take refuge;
His truth shall be your shield...

(from Psalm 91)