I’ve been writing the story of the birth of Christianity and, in the process I’ve been pondering some realizations. One of them is the idea of how God hides things from us when, all along, He waits for us to find them. God is full of mystery but when we are willing to lay hold of Him through faith, it’s amazing how much we really can grasp about Him. Because of that “leap in the dark” we must all take to truly become believers, it doesn’t take long at all before we are able to grasp some amazing wonders. We move from the darkness of skepticism or just plain unbelief to the discovery of the brilliant Light and meaning of God and His beauty and goodness. Once we move beyond initial faith, then we begin to grow through a multitude of ways. One of them is that God uses hidden things to teach us. Yes, hidden things are revealed only to those who hunger for Him.
He does this on purpose. He uses parables and riddles, hidden meanings in Scripture, unusual coincidences, phrases with double meanings, a variety of secrets must be searched for. These are ways God hides and waits for us to find. How He enjoys hide and seek!
While writing a scene in the story, I wondered how it was for the characters who once knew Jesus as a friend or as a brother, you know, people who walked beside Him, that had to later learn how to know Him the way we do. After He ascended into Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit, so He could “abide” inside of them.
Here’s the thing. They had to move from knowing Him outwardly to knowing Him inwardly. Talk about “hidden” things . . . What must they have thought when hearing the “still small voice” for the first time? Did they relate to Jesus even more intimately than they had before? I believe they did.
They had to learn how to relate to Him in a whole new way. He was “hidden” from them. Yet he was much closer to them than He’d been before.
This must have been an amazing transition. Can you imagine? Here’s a little snipet of a scene that tries to capture what that might have been like for one of the characters. (Note: Jesus is Yeshua in Hebrew.)
As soon as I blew out the flame of my lamp, I heard his voice, or was it a memory?—I recalled the evening Yeshua had come to me for a talk during the Feast of Tabernacles, I had been his enemy at that time. He came to me and we had an amazing conversation one night in my temporary Tabernacles booth.
He had picked up my oil lamp and held it in his hand, saying, “This lamp now shines in the day and you don’t need it in order to see. But tonight when it’s dark in this booth you will not be able to see without it. I am the Light, Judah. Because it’s day, you don’t realize you need the light, but what will you do when darkness falls? Judgment is coming to those who refuse the Light. They are already judged and will die in their sins. I’ve come into the world, not to judge it, but to save those who believe in me.”
At that time, I had been building in my mind my reasons I was against him. I wanted to take each blasphemous thing he had uttered and use Scriptures to judge him. Instead, in his mercy, he had judged me—and saved me.
“Yeshua,” I prayed quietly, “you are the Light of the world. Here in this dark room, with my lamp extinguished, I can see clearly that you are my Lord. Thank you for saving the disciples yesterday. Bless you, Yeshua, for sending your precious angel to escort them out. Bless you, Lord, for setting me free to do the work I am meant to do.”
“Lord?” I waited to see if he would speak to me. After a long stretch of silence, I heard him say, “Judah, do you love me? You bless me and you thank me, you praise and worship me. People bow down to their altars and their gods, they worship their idols. My people have worshipped me with their altars, their sacrifices, their rote prayers, their traditions and their tithes, yes, and in so many ways, they say they know me and serve me. But their hearts are far from me. Come close to me as I have come close to you. I am the Light of your heart, not just the world. I want your heart to be full of my glory. Do you love me? I love you as the Father loves me and as I love the Father. This is the depths of love you are invited to drink from. Drink deeply, Judah. This is the wellspring of eternal life.”
In what ways do we listen to hear God’s voice? He is waiting for us to seek him–he has many wonders waiting to be revealed to us.