Come Out of Hiding

Many of us carry a picture of how God reacts when we come to Him with something we have done wrong. We imagine that He is disappointed, arms crossed, waiting for the apology before He will warm back up to us. So, we wait and we do almost anything except simply come to God and tell the truth. There is a cost to this kind of hiding.

David knew the cost well. We see a picture of it in Psalm 32:3: “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (NIV). He knew the exhaustion of carrying something alone that was never meant to stay hidden. Then he stopped hiding. He told God the truth, and the weight lifted.

Here is what surprises so many of us. God was not waiting to scold David; He was waiting to free him. The struggle was never news to God, and the hiding was actually the thing keeping David stuck.

This changes what repentance even means. Repentance is not proving to God how sorry we are. It is bringing Him the real sin, the habit or fear we keep circling back to, and trusting Him completely. He looks at us in that moment with joy rather than disappointment, because He has wanted our freedom all along.

David goes on to call God his safe place: “You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance” (Psalm 32:7). The whole psalm is worth reading slowly, start to finish, to watch David travel from silent groaning all the way to songs of deliverance. There is an invitation here for us to allow God to be our hiding place rather than hiding from Him. The amazing thing is, He meets us with relief instead of shame.

Real change begins here. His kindness—not our shame—is what moves us toward something new.