The Best Hiding Place

“You are a Hiding Place for Me…”

Psalm 32:7

There was a door in my first bedroom that used to scare me to death.  Behind that door were a set of stairs that led up to our dark, creepy attic.   Because that door scared me, I figured that it scared everybody.  That made it the perfect hiding place.  Play hide and seek? That’s where I would hide.  Surely no one would look behind that scary door.  I was wrong.  They always found me.

Of course hiding isn’t always a kid’s game. Often hiding is about something far more serious.  Often it’s is about covering up our sin, and avoiding responsibility for our actions.  This kind of hiding is as old as creation.  When Adam and Eve sinned they hid their nakedness with fig leaves.   When they heard God walking in the Garden, they hid from Him.  When He questioned them about their sin, they blamed each other.  King David did it.  To cover up his adultery – He hid behind deception.  When that didn’t work, he fixed it so that it would appear as if Bathsheba’s husband had been killed in battle.   What are your hiding places – a good lie?  Just pretending as if nothing happened?  Blaming others?   Making excuses? 

There is one big problem with all of our hiding places – they don’t work.  .  Fig leaves dry up and crumble.  Lie and we get caught in our own web.   Oh we may be able to hide the truth from each other.  But we can’t hide from God.  He knew what Adam and Eve had done.  He knew where they were hiding and why.  David fooled everyone but God.  Just when David figured he had everything well hidden, God sent the prophet Nathan to say, “I know what you did.”  Even before that David’s guilty conscience was a heavy burden.  “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as in the heat of summer.”  (Psalm 32:3-4)

There really is only one good hiding place for sinners – that is in God Himself.  To hide yourself in God is simple.  All you need do is quit hiding.  Listen to David’s testimony – “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”  (Psalm 32:5) Isn’t that amazing?  When David quit trying to hide his guilt… When he quit the cover up and confessed what he had done… it was only then that his sin became truly and permanently covered… hidden beneath the comforting blanket of God’s forgiving love.

God is the best, the only hiding place for sinners.  Why?  Because He doesn’t avoid our sin.  He deals with it.  He gives us Jesus, His one and only Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sin!  He pays the debt we owe with His own life on the cross.  In Him our sin is truly covered once and forever, covered in His blood shed for us.  He takes our sin away from us – as far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our sin from us.

Do you want to know a good hiding place?  Here it is – the cross of Jesus.  Just  quit hiding!  Instead lay out the truth in honest confession before our loving God.  Lay it before the cross of Your Savior.  You will find in Him a hiding place that is so good that He Himself will remember your sin no more.  Heed the words of Kind David, “Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to You at a time when You may be found: surely in the rush of great waters they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; You preserve me from trouble: You surround me with shouts of deliverance.”  (Psalm 32:6-7)