The God Who Hides Himself!
Author: John Smith
September 16, 2020
I was reading Isaiah 45:15 today and it arrested me on the spot! It read (in the KJV) Truly you are the God who hides Himself! For some reason this phrase caught my attention and has caused me to focus on life as it is and not as I believe it should be. I began examining different facets of my life to see if I could detect the movement or presence of God.
As I contemplated this exercise my mind went back to the time I had a major asthma attack and the physicians thought that I would not pull through and I ended up in a step-down unit from ICU and really had stopped wheezing before they actually got me back in a room! However, when I got to my room, I had a roommate and he soon discovered that I was a preacher of the Gospel and he began to ask me a myriad of questions about faith and soon the Lord allowed me to present the Gospel to him and he committed his life to Christ. I believe that this was an instance where God had hidden Himself. This is a dramatic occurrence that definitely shows that God was using an unfortunate incident to bring about an eternal weight of Glory.
However, there are a myriad of ways that God hides Himself in the mundane and unnoticed events of our lives to bring us to a particular place at a particular time in front of particular people. I have heard many preachers over the years mention that God would move some individuals out of your life in order to push you into something that you would have never considered if they had remained with you. I am reminded about the end of the life of my mom and who she had adamantly rejected the Gospel all of my life. Now, she was okay with going to church on occasions but she never committed her life to Christ until.....it was discovered that she needed triple aortic aneurysm surgery. She had come out of surgery fine and did very well for a few days.
It was just a normal day post-surgery and my dad and I decided to go get lunch and we told me that we would be back in a little while! However, after walking almost out of the Hospital I realized that I had left my wallet in a bag in my mom’s ICU room, so I turned back to get my bag. When I came to my mom’s room, I heard her talking but she could not see me. I heard her committing her life to Christ and I froze in my tracks as I listened attentively while backing up out of the room so that I would not interrupt what was going on! How grateful I was for the Lord to allow me to turn back and get a bag that I had left and then allow me to walk into my mom’s room at the precise time that she was giving her life to Christ. I had been praying for my mom’s salvation for approximately 32 years and finally God answered my prayer. It was kind of bittersweet because the Lord called my mom home to heaven ten days later. Man, how I believe that God hides in what we consider to be the little things in life. God please help me to recognize where you are active and moving in my life no matter how small it might be!
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