Where’s Leila?

Bible Reading: Psalm 139:7-12

“Where’s Leila?” called Claire in a singsong voice as she played with her baby sister. “Where is Leila hiding?”

Leila peeked through the chubby little fingers she was holding in front of her face. Suddenly she dropped her hand. “There she is!” exclaimed Claire. “There’s Leila!”

The baby squealed in delight and promptly placed her fingers back over her eyes, ready to play the game again. Claire laughed too. “You really think you’re hiding from me, don’t you?” she said. “Babies are silly, aren’t they, Mom?”

“It can seem that way,” said Mom. “They don’t yet understand that they can still be seen even when they cover their eyes and can’t see anything else.” Mom smiled at Claire. “However, when people your age or my age try to hide, that really is silly!”

“What people?” Claire asked. “You mean like those who try to hide from the police? Or kids who try to hide from their parents or each other? But they don’t try to hide by covering their faces with their hands.”

“We may not use the same method of hiding,” said Mom, “but I was actually thinking of how we sometimes try to hide from God.”

Claire frowned. “Nobody can hide from Him, right? He knows everything.”

“Yes, He does, but we often seem to forget that. We’ll do something wrong and seem to think nobody knows about it. Even Christians, who should know better, sometimes act as though they can hide what they’ve done—forgetting that God knows all about it.”

“I know I’ve tried to do that myself,” Claire admitted. She laughed when she saw Leila once again peeking through her fingers. “It’s cute when a baby thinks she can hide, but it’s not cute for us to think that way, is it?”

“No,” said Mom. “Trying to hide only makes things worse. When we do something wrong, we need to be honest about it and confess it to Jesus. He died to take the punishment for our sin so we could have a relationship with Him, so there’s no reason to hide. Instead, we need to ask Him for forgiveness.”

Claire grinned as her baby sister’s hands fell away from her face. “There’s Leila!” Claire said, and they both erupted in giggles.

-Hazel W. Marett

How About You?

Do you think nobody knows you did something wrong? Broke that lamp? Told that lie? Snitched that cookie? God knows. You can’t hide anything from Him. If you’ve done something wrong, confess it to Jesus, and He will forgive you. Then tell anyone else you’ve wronged and ask them for forgiveness too.

Today’s Key Verse:
Jeremiah 23:24 “Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” (NIV)

Today’s Key Thought:

You can’t hide from God