Is God Hiding From You?

By Sarah Thomas Baldwin

My daughter Emily loves to play hide and seek. Emily is in the developmental stage where if she can’t see you, she thinks she is hidden. It’s very adorable. You will find her halfway under her bed with her feet sticking out. Or she will hide under the table or chair with her head tucked from view, convinced that she is hidden since she can’t see you.

If you “pretend” not to find her for very long, she starts giving you clues. Sometimes it’s giggles, sometimes it’s “Here!” every few moments. “Here!” — short for “Here I am!”

“Here! Here! Here!”

Emily’s favorite part of the game is being found. When you get to her hiding place, and make a big deal of being surprised, shouting “I found you,” she shrieks happily and overflows with enthusiasm. It doesn’t seem to get old — she says, “Again! Hide and seek!”

She loves being found.

When it’s my turn to hide, I like to find a place where I can nap for five minutes (like under a blanket on my bed, or under pillows on the couch). It’s a lovely five-minute nap. When she finds me and tears off the blanket or throws off the pillows, she is giggly and happy and yells, “Found you!” at the top of her lungs. She loves to find me.

Many of you have played this game with little kids. This is one of the oldest games in the world. Historians believe it was played before time was recorded. There are descriptions of hide-and-seek in second-century A.D. artwork. Hide-and-seek is played all over the world, in every culture and every era. We humans instinctively hide, and we instinctively want to be found.

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“God is the ultimate Finder. This is the deepest truth of our human story.”

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We want to be found, except when it means to be found out. Then, our nature is to try and hide our shame. Our earliest human ancestors had a hide-and-seek story in the Garden of Eden, but it wasn’t a happy game. Humanity hung in the balance.

We hid from God. Like Emily with her feet sticking out from under the bed, we ridiculously thought that if we couldn’t see God, God couldn’t see us. How wrong we were in the Garden. God is the ultimate Finder. This is the deepest truth of our human story.

God seeks after us and finds us.

God doesn’t play hide and seek with us. God only finds.

Here I Am

There is this beautiful Hebrew word that I am learning: Hineni (heh-nay-knee). It means “Here I Am!” with emphasis. This is a special phrase, only used a few times in Scripture. It has a sense of readiness to it, a sense of “Let’s gooooo!” as my Asbury Outpouring friends would say. Hineni has the readiness of someone who is alert and is listening with great intention, ready to act.

When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

“Here I am!” Moses replied, “Hineni!” Here I am.

God had Moses’ attention.

In Genesis 22:11, at the moment when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son and an angel of the Lord called, “Abraham! Abraham!” Abraham said, “Hineni!” Here I am.

God had Abraham’s attention.

In 1 Samuel 3, when the Lord called to the young boy: “Samuel?” Samuel said: Hineni. “Here I am.” When Isaiah had a vision: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah said, “Hineni! Send me!”

If you have, do you remember the first time you said “yes” to Jesus?

Think back. Do you remember how your whole heart responded to the presence of God? You may have been very still with awe. You may have been overwhelmed with joy or repentance or the recognition of your deep need for God. You may have wept at an altar on your knees.

[I saw so much spiritual hunger of people seeking God at the altar in the days of the Outpouring at Asbury — you can read my personal story in  “Generation Awakened”].

But no matter where and when, you were sure that God found you. You were the one that the Holy Spirit was seeking, going after, looking for. You knew at that moment that you were found.

You said Hineni.

You were Samuel, asleep on the mat in your spirit, and God gave you the wake-up call of your life. You were like Moses, walking through life when suddenly God got your attention, and a bush was on fire, and you were suddenly alert to God.

But wait! I haven’t told you the best part of Hineni yet.

Twice in Isaiah, God says Hineni to His people:

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will spring up speedily. Then you will call, and God will answer. You will cry, and He will say, “Hineni!” (Behold, Here I Am!) (Isaiah 58:8–9) and in Isaiah 43:19, “Behold (Hineni!), I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (RSV).

God shows up for you. God finds. There are both times when God calls us clearly for a new thing in our life, and there is the always open invitation of God for freedom to more of God.

We say Hineni to God, and God says Hineni to us.

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“God doesn’t play games. God is in the work of finding.”

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The Work of Finding

This year in 2025, God is still in the work of finding.

If you think God is hiding from you, God doesn’t play games. God is in the work of finding. The beautiful thing is: You don’t have to have your act together to be found.

Are you ready to be found? Or found again?

God will not give up looking for you.

God will not give up looking for your child.

God will not give up looking for your husband.

God will not give up looking for your wife.

God will not give up. “Hineni! I am doing a new thing.”

God will not give up looking for you.

Dear child,

You may feel that I have forgotten you,

but are you sure it is not you hiding from Me?

When you turn away from Me, I still see you.

Stay with Me. Look this way. Listen.

My business is in doing new things.

Do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert,

rivers in the badlands.

You will be found.

I am the God of finding.

Hineni. Here I am.

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