The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Playing Hide-and-Go Seek with God

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

There are times in our lives when we either hide from God or we feel like God is hiding from us. Today, Jeff uses Scripture to remind us that God is always searching for us no matter how much we try to hide from him. Sometimes it’s not so much about finding God, but rather it’s about letting ourselves be found by him. Snippet from the Show “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” - Jeremiah 29:13 Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail] Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 185, playing Hide and Go Seek with God. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Well, good to be with you again. Here I am. I am deep in the woods of Minnesota, literally right now, looking out at a beautiful lake and in the woods. And, you know, I'm out here, and I'm thinking of myself, I'm all alone out here, and nobody knows I'm here. Nobody sees me. And I started thinking about, you know, our relationship

with the Lord. And I was looking around at the little fort that my grandson, Frankie, has built. I built it with him and it's a little fort next to the next to the lake and a trail and uh sometimes he'll go hiding in that fort and he doesn't think i know exactly where he is but i know where he is the whole time even though he is hiding do you remember playing hide and go seek as a kid growing up oh boy i do i remember playing that back in back in bloomington minnesota when all the neighborhood kids would come out the sun is about to go down and we'd play a hide and go seek. And we knew all the great places to hide. At least we thought so. And we knew where the typical places were. And so if we were the one that was it and we had to go looking for people,

we would go to the, to kind of the obvious ones first, the ones that have been used over and over and over. But it was the person who really found a new hiding place. They were the ones that were hard to find. But, you know, eventually you would find him. We're talking about playing high. and go seek with God today, and maybe you're in that position. Maybe that's something that you're experiencing in your life. Maybe you're hiding from God, or you're wondering if the Lord is looking for you, and he can't find you. I've got some wonderful scriptures to share with you today, and if you'd like all the show notes, you can simply text my name, one word, Jeff Kaven's, and you can text it to 3377. That's 3377. I hope you are doing better, my friend. You know that this show is all about becoming

an activated disciple. It's about walking with the Lord. And even though you are listening to this show, maybe you're listening to the show because you're actually hiding right now. And you want to come back out into the open. You want to come back out into the light and walk with the Lord. No, for sure that God is waiting for you with outstretched arms, with an open heart, with a father's warmth and encouragement and invitation. That's what he's doing. So we'll talk about that a little bit today. Hey, if you are listening to this in the proper order of 185, it means that we are done with our introduction in lesson one for our unlocking the mystery of the Bible live on Ascension's Facebook page, and it's still not too late. Seriously, you can go and sign up

and you can order your workbook, and you will have access to all the videos, and you'll be able to join us as we go deeper into unlocking the mystery of God. Some people have been asking once again about that PDF I have on how much time it takes to read every single book of the Bible, and that's very useful, particularly if you want to trade in some kind of network television for a good session of reading God's Word. You can find that by going to my website, jeffcavens.com. Just register there, and we'll send that to you. Absolutely free. Okay, so playing hide and go seek with God. I do remember growing up, and it was fun. You know, the sun was going down, and somebody was it, and we'd have them count to 60 or, you know,

a hundred or whatever it might be, and we're running, and we're running to hiding places, hoping that we will not be found and that we will be the winner. And I can remember so many times, you know, hiding, and they're not finding me and even nearly falling asleep because nobody is finding me. You wonder if kids play that game anymore, because so many kids, they don't come out in the neighborhood and play wiffle ball or capture the flag or hide and go seek. it's not so much hide and go seek anymore it's more like guess what app i'm on right now and if that's the case boy you're missing out on a on a great game you know we go back all the way to the beginning of

the bible where we see that this hide and go seek game started in genesis chapter three and verse nine it uh it happened on the heels of adam and eve and original sin when they disobeyed God in the early parts of Genesis, and they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they immediately were plunged into a game of hide and go seek, in a sense. It says in Genesis 39, and I'll put all these scriptures in the show notes for you, in case you're driving. We don't want you to get into an accident, so don't write it down. We'll send it to you. But Genesis 39 says, but the Lord God called to the man, that's Adam, after he had sinned, and said to him, where are you? Where are you? And where was Adam? Well, you can read Genesis chapter 3 and you can see

that Adam was hiding. He was hiding. And so we see this dynamic, this pattern, this principle of when sin comes into our life, one of the results is we typically will hide. We'll hide. And that's true at the natural level with the people that we love or our employer, whoever it might be. But it is certainly true with God, in that when we sin, we have a tendency to run from God or hide from God. We're struggling with shame or whatever it might be. We hide. But the beautiful thing here is that in the very first paragraph of the catechism, it says that God has a plan of sheer goodness. And he goes seeking out for man. He's seeking you. He's looking for you. Not that he doesn't know where you're at, but you get the idea, he is constantly looking for you.

Where are you? So let me ask you a question. Where do we hide once we sin? Once we get into a pattern of sin, whether it's, you know, smaller sins, we call that venial, or whether it's an outright mortal sin, very, very serious that breaks our relationship with God. Where do people typically hide? Well, not a secret, we could probably list off 10 major areas where people have a tendency to hide. You know, alcohol, people can hide in alcohol. They can really struggle with the sin in their life and with the way that they have been living. Maybe you're there right now. And they think, well, if I can just drop, you know, a couple of Jack Daniels, things will not be so bad. I will hide from that shame. I'll hide from that guilt. I'll hide from that look in the mirror that I don't

like. So alcohol can be a place where you can hide in this hide and go seek with God game. You can hide in drugs and just numb the pain that way. You can hide. That's true. You can hide and you may think that you're actually hidden. But as we're going to see here in just a little bit, God knows exactly where you are. Maybe for you, it's not alcohol or drugs. Maybe it's something as sophisticated as painkillers. Maybe you are hiding from God and hiding from reality, hiding from responsibility, hiding from that role you have as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father, as a grandpa, grandma, you're hiding in painkillers or work. Sometimes we can just hide and work and then to bury myself in work. I don't want to look at reality. I don't want to look at what I've done. I don't want to look

at the consequences of my behavior and we hide ourselves in work. Or, very popular today, internet. Just hide yourself on the internet. And one that doesn't seem so bad, but we do it, you know, quite often. We hide in hobbies. Yeah, I'm going to get so involved in something that I'm just going to hide and I don't want to face what I have done in my life. So we hide in in hobbies. And what does all this do but leave us with a real deep sense of loneliness, of emptiness in our lives, meaninglessness, a sense of futility? Well, are you tired of hiding? I'm going to encourage you today to come out into the light. Come out into the light. Maybe, you know, maybe you're the parent of a son who's hiding. Just not too long ago here, I had a conversation

with just a beautiful daughter of God who struggling so much because their children, her and her husband, their children, are so caught up in hiding from God with drugs. And it's broken their hearts. They feel so discouraged and feel guilty and they feel like they've got a mark of shame on them. And they're even thinking of hiding from God themselves. Do you have a teenage son or daughter who's hiding from God? I know that there's a real famous mom who had a son who was hiding from God. Her name was Monica, you might know her as saint, Monica, but St. Monica had a son who was hiding from God. His name was Augustine, and of course, he came out into the light, and God found

him, and he found God game over, and he became one of the great saints of the church, St. Augustine. And so many of the saints were people who used to play hide and go seek with God. but finally gave up and said, here I am, take me, you know, I'm done with this game. I don't want to play this game. I don't want to seek out the dark places and the hidden places, and I don't want to live in the night. Lord, I want to live in the light. I want to live in the light. Remember the rules to the game? I remember the rules so well. The rules were that somebody had to close their eyes and count to a hundred, and all of us would run. We were. We were, would run and then sit in our darkness, in our hiddenness, until somebody, the one that was chosen

would come and seek us out, and they would look hard for us, but we made sure that they weren't going to find us. Those were the rules. Here's the thing about playing hide and go seek with God. He is ever present. He is omnipotent, omniscient. He's everywhere. You played the hide and go seek game with the wrong one here. God knows where you're at. He knows where your son is at. Jeremiah put it this way in Jeremiah 23, 24, and I'll put all these scriptures in the notes, in the show notes. Jeremiah said, can a man hide himself in hiding places? So I do not see him, declares the Lord? That's a good question, isn't it? God's saying, can a man hide himself in hiding places? So I do not see him, declares the Lord. Do I do I?

I not fill the heavens and the earth, declares the Lord. Good luck hiding from God. Good luck. You're not going to find that place. Can you hide yourself from God where he doesn't see you? No. Hebrews chapter 4 in verse 13 says, and there is no creature hidden from his sight. But all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. now that's very revealing but it's also good news isn't it because as we hide in our shame and we continue to hide in our guilt we feel that he can't see us anymore he can't see us anymore and if he can't see us anymore we don't have to put up with the shame in the guilt in our life but he knows where you are at while you think you're hiding he knows where you are at the whole time. And he encourages you to come out into the light. Usually we do hide in darkness,

don't we? But he's saying, come out into the light. All that is done in darkness will one day be under the light of God. It's going to happen one way or another, and your sin will find you out. And why not come out into the light? Why not go to confession? And basically raise your hands and say, you got me, you found me, you're it. And he is it, isn't it? He is the one. He is the one that we are ultimately seeking. And so God knows where you're at today, my friend. And in this podcast may be just for you. It might be just for you driving down the road right now thinking, how long will I hide? How long will I run? How long will I play hide and go seek with God? He found you. He found you. And he's asking you to come into the light and to say, Lord, I give up.

I give up. I'm yours. Take me, Lord. Take me. Now, what about reversing this? You go looking for God. Where? Well, maybe God seems hidden to you. You're looking for God in all the wrong places, and you're looking for God and in all the ways of the world, but you don't seem to be able to find him in this game of hide and go seek. Let's talk about that a little bit after the break. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Do you find it difficult to enter into the mysteries of the rosary? What about personally applying them to your life? Drawing from the writings of the saints, the Bible, and Catholic tradition, Matt Frat has produced Pocket Guide to the Rosary, a masterful work that teaches Catholics

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pocket guide to the rosary by Matt Frad to order visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon on. Welcome back. We're talking about playing hide and go seek with God. And as you know, he's going to win because you cannot hide from God. I don't care where you go. I don't care what you take. I don't care what you participate in. God knows where you're at. And the longer you hide from God, the more you're going to give up of all the goodness and the joy and the mercy and kindness that God extends to his prodigal son. He extends to his prodigal daughter.

Now, there's something to be said about the reverse of this, and that is seeking God. You know, God maybe as a result of playing hide and go seek with God, you feel like God is hiding from you. And you're searching for God. And that is ultimately what we're doing, isn't it, with the alcohol and the drugs and the New Age movement and the philosophy of the world. politics and everything. We can just, you know, we're looking for God, but we're looking for God in all the wrong places. You know, I love what Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 2913. This is so beautiful. And I really, really encourage you to get the show notes here and meditate upon these scriptures. Jeremiah says in 2913, you will seek me and find me. That's God talking to you. He says, you will seek me and find me when, here's the deal now, when you seek me with all of your

heart. Are you at that place right now? Are you at the place right now? But maybe you've even been toying around a little bit and kind of seeking here and seeking there. And you don't feel like you have really found the truth? Listen, God wants to be found out more than you want to find him. God wants you to seek him more than you want to seek God. That's what St. Augustine said one time, you know, is that, you know, God loves you more than you could possibly love him. Jeremiah 2913, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I love also what the psalmist said in Psalm 63 and verse 2. This is, this is really good, because you might ask the question, where should I seek God? Well, there are a number of places that you can seek God. You can certainly

seek Him in the Word of God. I'm holding a copy of Sacred Scripture right now where God reveals himself. Game up, game up. God reveals himself in sacred scripture, in his words and in his deeds. You can come to know him. You can seek him in the morning. You can seek him in the middle of the night when you can't sleep. And the psalmist says in Psalm 63, 2, so I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and your glory. Listen, my friend, if you've been running from God hiding in that darkness, I want you to come out into the light and seek him in the sanctuary. What do we mean by that? Well, you can certainly find him in the holy sacrifice of the mass. You can find him in the sacraments and the sacramental encounter of confession.

But maybe what the Lord is just asking you to do today is on the way home from work, or when you get up tomorrow morning, go to your local church, Catholic church, where they have adoration and call them ahead of time and see, are you guys open for adoration right now? And then set your heart to seek God in the sanctuary. beholding his power and beholding his glory in the blessed sacrament. You'll come face to face with God in the blessed sacrament. And I'm telling you what, he can do things in your heart that I cannot do on this podcast.

He can do things in your heart that Dr. Phil can't do. He can do things in your heart that Rush Limbaugh can't do, that any pop psychologist on television or the internet, They can't do it, but he can do it. So look for God in the sanctuary and behold his power and his glory. The gospel of Luke chapter 19 and verse 10 even gives us kind of the broad picture of what Jesus came to do when he came to the earth 2,000 years ago. And he said, for the son of man, which is actually a phrase, a title that he calls himself, which is more common than all the other titles combined. He says, for the son of man, speaking of himself, came to seek and save the lost. We're talking about playing hide and go seek with God. And now we find out in Luke's gospel that

God is seeking you. He's seeking you. He's seeking the lost. He's seeking the hidden person. He's seeking the person who right now is thinking, I'll just down that last fifth and I'll feel better. He's seeking that person that says, I'm just going to, I'm just going to have one more duby and then I'm going to feel better. He's seeking that person who says, I'm just going to binge watch one more series. I'll feel better. No, you won't. You won't because you are not created for binge watching.

You're not created for the doobie. You're not created for another fifth. You are created for God. And that's why he continues to seek you. Wow, what a love story. What an amazing story. Don't play hide and go seek with God. And if you are playing hide and go seek with God, know this. He knows where you're at. He is seeking you right now. He's seeking your son. He's seeking your daughter. Pray for your son or daughter right now and say, oh, God, find them. I pray. Find them. Game up. Proverbs 817 continues the narrative here. God says, I love those who love me. Don't we all, huh? I love those who love me. And those who seek me diligently find me. Boy, that's a promise right there, isn't it?

That's a promise that if you feel like, well, however, you know, I've been trying to seek the Lord and listen, seek him diligently. Open that Bible up. You don't have a Bible. Go right now to ascensionpress.com and buy the Great Adventure Bible. It'll even teach you how to read the Bible as a story. You'll hear his words. You'll read his words.

You'll see his actions. and you will find him. He'll reveal his heart to you. He'll reveal his deeds to you. He'll give you a foundation that you can trust him on. That's what you're looking for. That's what I'm looking for in my life. As an 18-year-old young man, that's what I was looking for.

In the midst of rock concerts and parties and everything else, hiding from God. God was looking for me. He found me. And I found God. and my life was radically changed. Isaiah 55 in verses 6 and 7, get a load of this. This is beautiful. Isaiah says, seek the Lord while he may be found. If you've got breath in you, you can find the Lord. But do not wait until it's too late. Don't play roulette with God. Don't play games with God. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake

his way. And the unrighteous man, his thoughts, let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Wow. You're hiding from God. He knows where you're at. Give it up. Go out into the light. And you know what? He is filled with abundant pardon. Abundant pardoning. Oh, that's beautiful. Don't be afraid to go to confession. If you haven't been to confession for a while, just go and say, Father, I've been playing hide and go seek with God, and he found me. He found me, and I don't even know what to say. I don't even know how to go to confession. I even Googled it, and I couldn't even figure it out. I'm here. I played hide and go seek with God. He found me. What do I do now, Father? You go to that, and you go to confession. I'll tell you what.

Those priests are waiting for you as Christ is waiting for you in that priest, and they will welcome you with open arms. They'll welcome you with a greeting of a father and a son, a father and a daughter. Psalm 34 in verse 10, the young lions suffer want and hunger. You've ever felt like that? Right now, during COVID-19, with everything that's going on with your job, in your children, in your marriage, are you suffering want? Is there a hunger in your heart? You tired? Psalm 34 says, verse 10, the young lion suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. That's beautiful. They lack no good thing. The writer of Lamentations, chapter 3 and 25, says, the Lord is good to

those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. That's a promise, my friend. The Lord is good to those who wait for him. The Lord is good to the soul who seeks him. There's nothing like, There's nothing quite as refreshing as giving up in this game and saying, Lord, I'm tired of running. I'm tired of hiding in the darkness. I'm tired of going where nobody knows what I'm doing. I'm tired of this, Lord, I give up, I give up, I give up. Take me, Lord. I am yours.

Amos gives this great encouragement, one of the minor prophets in Amos 5-4, for thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, seek me and live. God says, seek me and live. You know, what's so funny is that when we play this game of hide and go seek, at least I can remember so many times hiding so well that the kid in the neighborhood, whether it was Mark or Dave or Greg, they were looking for me. And in some cases, they were only about a foot away from me, I was hiding behind a hedge.

I was hiding behind some shrubbery, and they didn't see me. How many times have you walked by God, and you didn't even know it? When you were seeking God, you didn't even know that he was right there. Well, I pray he jumps right out at you. He jumps right out and says, here I am, and makes himself obvious to you through a friend, your parents, a billboard, something on the radio, something you see on the Internet. And also, do you remember that game we used to play where you're getting warmer? You're getting warmer.

You begin to really seek God. You're getting warmer. And then all of a sudden you look at the new age movement. You're getting colder. You're getting colder. Start learning, you know, looking back to that alcohol or whatever it might be. You're getting colder. Well, I'm here to encourage you today and to say, you're getting warmer.

You're getting warmer, warmer, hotter, hotter. That's it. It's Jesus Christ. That's the answer. And when he finds you, you won't even say what you said when you were a kid. When that person found you and you said, you said, you peaked. You peaked. Well, maybe they did peak.

Guess what? God is peaking to. God was peaking the whole time that you were running. He loves you and he has found you. And I got news for you and I'll conclude with this. When you play hide and go seek with God, 100% of the time, he wins. He wins. He knows where you're at. Will you allow him to win in your heart? There's nothing quite as sad as to know that God was seeking you or somebody else, all their life,

and they hid, and they died, lost in darkness, in the shadows. Don't be that person. If you know somebody who needs to hear this today, please pass this podcast on to them. And I would say to you that are listening to this because some loved one gave it to you, God loves you so much. And he's got an amazing plan for your life. And my friend, sin has screwed up our lives. It screwed up my life. It screwed up your life and many, many others. But the good news is that Jesus Christ loves you so much that he died for you. And now he's asking you to come out of the darkness in the shadows and to totally radically reorient your life to him. And you will find a new life, the life you've been looking for, and the forgiveness, and the restitution that you have been seeking, you will find

it. Again, you can get the show notes here by just texting my name, Jeff Kavans, and texting it to 33777. It's two sets of three. That's three three, and then three sevens, three, seven, seven. Let me pray for you. In the Amen, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Oh, my God, I thank you that you never give up on us. We have been hiding so often in this game of hide and go seek, but you know where we're at and you come seeking us. Lord, may we jump out of the shadows and say, you got me. May we cling to you and give our lives to you. May we confess our sin to you and experience the joy and the refreshment that comes from forgiveness. Thank you, Lord. Game over. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I love you, my friend. God bless you. And you have a marvelous week.