Why do you hide Yourself?

But you do see,
for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands…
Psalm 10:14 ESV

There are times when God is not quite as apparent to us as we might want him to be.
There are times when we might wish we were not quite as apparent to God as we are.

Does God play a cruel game of hide and seek with his children, then? No.

God has said, ‘You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart’, Jeremiah 29:13; so we need never be afraid that we might not find him (or that he will give up on finding us). God is always being revealed; Romans 1:19-20, and our Father in Heaven always watches over us; Psalm 121.

So why do we feel that God hides himself from us or, worse, that he turns his back on us?

Charles Spurgeon suggests an answer in his comments on Psalm 10:1. He says…

‘If we need an answer…it is to be found in the fact that there is a ‘needs be’, not only for trial, but for heaviness of heart under trial (1 Peter 1:6); but how could this be the case, if the Lord should shine upon us while he is afflicting us? Should the parent comfort his child while he is correcting him, where would be the use of the chastening? A smiling face and a rod are not fit companions. God bares the back that the blow may be felt; for it is only felt affliction which can become blest affliction. If we are carried in the arms of God over every stream, where would be the trial, and where the experience, which trouble is meant to teach us?’

This is understandably hard to hear for us, who prefer God’s comfort to his chastisement.

But the God who sees mischief and vexation, takes it into his hands only for our good.

‘For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.’ Hebrews 12:11 ESV