Hide and Seek is one of the most popular children’s games around the world. I’m sure you played this game as a kid. The object is simple- find the best hiding spot and be the last person found. I was never good at this game because I would make too much noise, get bored, and give up. What if we tried to hide from God? That may seem silly, but how often do you convince yourself that you can sin and get away with it? Or how often do you feel alone? The majority of the world is playing hide and seek with God. They think they can escape His judgment and slip into heaven. But the fact is, we cannot hide from God. God is omnipresent. This means He is everywhere, all at the same time.
David considered this question in Psalm 139:7-12. He asks in verse 7, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” Then he begins to list extreme distances that he could go to try to hide. He mentions heaven, the grave, the other side of the sea, and even the darkest corner of the earth. But he concludes that God is still there. Verse 10 says, “Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” And in verse 12, he says, “Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” David could hide in the darkest cave in the farthest corner of the earth, but God still was with him and could see him like the brightest of days. God is everywhere.
In Jeremiah 23:24, God says that He fills heaven and earth so that no man can hide from Him. The Earth is a massive place. You can spend your whole life just exploring the United States of America and still not see it all. But God’s presence goes beyond the earth. He’s present at the farthest star. He’s present in the center of the Sun. God is wholly present in every square inch of the entire universe, all at the same time.
However, we do not believe in pantheism. This is the view that everything is god. There is a clear distinction here. God is present everywhere, but that doesn’t make everything God. God is present in your bedroom, but your bedroom is not God. God is present in all physical matter, but the matter is not God. This is because God is a Spirit. He is not bound by physical space and time. God is distinct from His creation, but at the same time present in every part of it without any division or multiplication of Himself.
God’s omnipresence serves as both a warning and a comfort. The warning is for those who are trying to hide from God. You can’t escape God. You can mock and reject Him, but you can’t escape Him. So don’t try to hide. The comfort is for those who belong to God through Jesus Christ. God has a special presence with His children. This presence will be fully realized in eternity (See Revelation 21-22). No matter what you are going through, no matter where you are, God is with you. As David said, God’s right hand will hold you. We can take comfort in the fact that God is always with us.