What do you hide from? Where do you hide? Do you hide from God? Do you hide in godliness? Tough questions with no easy answer or resolution. Just conviction, which is always tough. I have been asking these questions to myself for some time and always thought I was doing pretty good. Today, God opened my eyes. We were discussing the balance between spending time growing spiritually and spending time in outward ministry. My argument was that we were commissioned to make disciples, not grow. I said that outreach should be the #1 focus of our time and if there’s extra time, spend time growing yourself. I said that setting aside time on a mission trip just to spend time reading the bible and dealing with your own self is a very slippery slope. Because it could become a temptation to spend all of your time learning spiritual things and end up running out of time to share them with those who aren’t even going to heaven.
At this point in the conversation God showed me that I read the bible more in preparation for a sermon than I ever do for growth. Here I was pointing the finger saying that others weren’t spending enough time in ministry and I wasn’t spending enough time in prayer and the word for personal growth. I was hiding from God by doing things for God. I was perhaps afraid of what would come out or be revealed in those times of growth. Perhaps afraid it would mean change on my part. And that would mean discomfort and effort. But what of the opposite? Do we sometimes hide from God by spending time with God? Perhaps we become afraid of outward ministry. Perhaps we are afraid of what we would be called to do. Perhaps we are afraid of having to leave our comfort zones, know that it would take some serious effort and could get messy. Perhaps. We can’t spend all our time in ministry and we can’t spend all our time in personal growth ministry. God built us for both and requires both of us.
Let’s say for a moment that I had married a wonderful woman of God. I am in a covenant relationship with her. But I spend all my time out looking for ways to make her happy (buying her flowers, buying her tickets to a ballet, putting the seat down, etc.) and I never just spend time with her to build our relationship (learn more about her, tell her more about me, discover things about us, or working out problems between us). It wouldn’t be very good. Pretty soon, I wouldn’t even have a wife to make happy. The same would be true if I never did things to make her happy. I would need to do both. And do them in balance. Like faith without works and works without faith, it doesn’t work with just one half.
What do you hide from? Where do you hide? Do you hide from God in godliness? Like I said before, there is no EASY answer. But as Christians, we walk in truth, however uncomfortable that might be.
