Then you hid your face, and I was filled with fear.
This psalm begins with the psalmist exalting, and praising and worshipping God. You restored me to health, you have not let my enemies triumph over me! Woo hoo! Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the psalmist claims, ‘then you hid your face, and I was filled with fear.'
This reminds me of the quick turn that happens when playing with babies. They giggle, and smile, and are very happy. Then the adult has to introduce the peek-a-boo horror. I remember the first time I did that with my son, and despite being perfectly happy one minute, he was clearly petrified when I disappeared, aka hid my face under a blanket.
Are we like that with God? Perfectly happy, gurgling, and smiling like a baby? God plays God’s version of peek-a-boo, and we’re momentarily petrified as if God has gone somewhere far away?
Like the parent in a game of peek-a-boo, God hasn’t disappeared. I’m pretty sure God does not actively hides God’s face, like parents do in those innocent games. Maybe our sense that God hides God’s face is more like the 4 year old in a big store that gets distracted by the colors and lights, and when we look up, we don’t see our parents.
God doesn’t play peek-a-boo; rather, we the distractible children wander away momentarily, and then look up and are shocked and terrified that our loving parent is not right behind us.
This morning, I’m thinking about that sense that we have of God’s absence, and how it seems like that absence is because we walked away, not because God is playing any cosmic game of hide and seek. And like a lost child, the answer is not to run around hunting and searching, in panic.
In those moments when I cannot feel God’s calm and immediate presence, I need to stand still, breath, trust and wait. God never left. Maybe I walked away, but God is always present. I need to trust that, and wait for God to resurface, amidst my fear of being lost. God was there, the whole time.
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