Planning a surprise birthday party requires lots of planning, swearing guests to secrecy, a sizeable amount of subterfuge (little white lies for cover), arranging the venue, the food, the decorations, the timing, phew! When it comes off without a hitch, it is so satisfying! (Yes, apologies need to be made, and confessions, too, and still . . .)
I cringe a bit as I write this, but confession is good for the soul. I’ll confess the highlight, for me, of our Sunday School Christmas Concerts was the anticipation of knowing what came at its end. It was a visit from ‘Santa,’ complete with suit and beard, with bags of treats for all us kids. Hm. I’m feeling lighter, and slightly less guilty, already. But the connection eludes me.
Since social media’s invasion, a surprise event that was formerly private has been transformed into a finely orchestrated, well attended, professionally videoed spectacle. It’s the one where, when a young man in love has decided to buy the ring, get down on one knee, and ask the girl who has his heart, life’s ultimate nerve-wracking question. Her inevitable ‘Yes!’ is accompanied by cheers and applauding and hugs and happy tears – and cake. (You can’t have a celebration without cake!)
The hiding, the planning, the anticipation, are all echoed in a Proverb of Solomon’s:
‘God conceals the revelation of his word in the hiding place of his glory.
But the honor of kings is revealed by how they thoroughly search out
the deeper meaning of all that God says.
The heart of a king is full of understanding,
like the heavens are high and the ocean is deep.’ (Prov. 25: 2-4, TPT).
Here, I sense that God is like a loving parent who loves his children well. He knows they are thrilled in the wanting, in the exploring, in the final knowing that, after all, there is always more. He loves that they know they are ‘surrounded’ by a love that will never exhaust itself, a love that is higher and deeper and more vast than they will manage to discover on their own. His ‘hidings’ cause their hearts to fill to bursting with joy in Him.
The Prophet Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, knew intimately the flip side of this glory-filled hiding. He was much-abused, much-hated. He was committed to the terrible mission he’d been given. Everyone around him misunderstood him. No one heeded his warnings. At one point he got so distraught, he thought what was, for him, the unthinkable:
‘ . . . if I say I’ll never mention the Lord or speak in his name,
his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones!
I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!’ Jer. 20:9, NLT.
‘Is he safe?’ asked Lucy of Mr. Beaver concerning Aslan. ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? But he’s good I tell you.’ Mr. Beaver was right. PD
Don graduated from Regent University in 1988 and moved to France for seven years, coming back to the US briefly to marry Sue in 1990. The work in France included working in a Christian School and helping plant a church before returning in 1995. He’s been pastor of Peninsula Vineyard since 1999. He enjoys counseling, especially married couples, traveling back to France (with Sue), reading, doing Sudoku puzzles and sleuthing out good, dark chocolate. Don serves as the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church Peninsula, in Newport News, Virginia.