Papa, where are you?

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverbs 25:2 (ESV).

Those of us who parent or spend time with children know a simple truth: we are all His children, and on some or many occasions, the Lord has encountered us through them. Through some incident, or even a verbal exchange, He will reveal Himself, or some part of His nature or personality, give correction, direction, affirmation, or simply be with us in a time of great fun. Whatever may be His purpose in these instances, He makes us marvel at Him and His unbounded affection for us. We may be given a landmark event or a marvellous memory to keep for eternity in some of these manifestations.

Our two boys, 4 and 8, in our old wooden country five-bedroom house, loved the creaking, sagging, sloping floors with the rhythmically spaced holes on the browned hardwood slabs that stretched from kitchen to living room, where screws once held down school desks. Our house was built many years ago and used a long time as a place for children, and all those floor holes had bits of echoes of the learning of years. I believe it was part of the reason why it was, for us, a happy home, but our boys would leave from there every morning to be bussed to their school.

It was a wet day of in-house confinement. As big as two bedrooms combined, their upstairs playroom was their mansion of noise in their father’s house. The floor was layered by old green artificial patio turf, also buried by toys. These were the harvests of Saturday morning pilgrimages to country yard sales. As parents, we were in perpetual awe to see the Lord continually provide so much for so little. In this room, the carpet, the toys, and the usual noise concealed any marks or echoes of times past. It was filled only with the life of their happy days.

But on this long grey day, the room was bored soundless and listless with rejected toys. But then came a challenge! A gauntlet! The game!!… HIDE AND SEEK between a father and his boys!!! The burden and chains of boredom and confinement were lifted and broken by a liberating vision of great cleverness to hide, adventure to seek and genius to find. However, at this level of competition, fathers must be kind and pretend. Little boys can roll up in a ball behind a kitchen chair, cover their giggling bodies with a blanket, stand in a corner with closed eyes, and think themselves so concealed as to be impossible to find. But then fathers are so big they can be impossible to hide.

But on this day, this father noticed above the upstairs banister… the attic trap door. He slithered up. He closed the lid, and he truly disappeared. For little boys, such a place is as far as the heavens are above the earth. I sat in quiet marvel and NAIVETY anticipation of pure triumph. I heard the end of the count that happily released them unto their hopeless quest. Eventually began the calling of their voices that quickly enough, turned into a tone of defeat by the mystery.

“Papa…?… Where are you??… We can’t find you…???”

“You shall find Me if you seek Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13

And then louder, PAPA???… WHERE ARE YOU???… COME OUT!!! PLEASE!!! It was despair!

“a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Psalm 51:17

In the dark attic, I saw my youngest, cheeks dropping loud tears. I could bear their misery no longer.

I had kept the mystery too long. I had taken them from adventure to anguish. I had, by so much, missed the mark. With sudden remorse for having broken their hearts, I urgently wanted their joy of reconciliation or even to accept the anger of their punishing rebuke for having caused such pain of abandonment. I rushed to come down.

But to my urgency of reappearance, to my self-manifestation, there was no hint of the impulse to embrace in joyful reunion, no demand for retribution for the cause of pain. But instead was the greatness of their marvel, the all occupying wonder at the unfathomable mystery. And with such exuberance and such joy!

“Papa! That was a WONDERFUL HIDING PLACE!!!”

Our boys resumed their day of happy noise in their room of toys. And all was as it should have been. And from this encounter, I’m learning to see that the greatest and most glorious of our Heavenly Father’s mysteries to reveal is Himself.

An Epilogue: “That Papa should have a place that we cannot find is wonderful, as it should be. And Papa, having played with us, is here. And that’s most wonderful of all, as it should be.”

A Prologue for our lives: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, seen, looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life was made manifest to us. And we saw It and testify to It. That which was manifested, we also proclaim to You that You might have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. And we have written this that our joy may be complete.”