What are You Hiding From?

Revelation 6:15-17 "And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!  For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?'"

Dear God,

Thank you for the privilege of fleeing to You.  You are safety, refuge, and comfort.  I need You.

But John describes a day of wrath that seems to change You.  What is causing this apparent universal fear and attempt to hide from Your face?

William Barclay writes:  "The terrible thing about sin is that it makes a man a fugitive from God; and the supreme thing about the work of Jesus Christ is that it puts a man into a relationship with God in which he no longer need seek to hide, knowing that he can cast himself on the love and the mercy of God" (William Barclay in The Revelation of John, vol. 2, 1959, p. 20).

That is it, of course.  Sin brings guilt.  Guilt brings fear.  Fear drives one to hide.  Adam and Eve responded that way to You in the Garden of Eden.

"That from which men flee is the wrath of the Lamb. Here is paradox; we do not readily associate wrath with the Lamb but rather gentleness and kindness. But the wrath of God is the wrath of love, which is not out to destroy but even in anger is out to save the one it loves" (Ibid, p. 20). 

So often, we flee from Your apparently angry visage, fearing You mean us harm, when all of the while, Your anger is an expression of Your protective love for us.  You want us to be safe.  You want us to be protected from sin's effects.  You want intimate relationship with us.  Our sin contradicts and opposes everything good You desire for us.  So, "the wrath of God is the wrath of love," and Your passionate longing is to save us from ourselves, our sins, our brokenness.

As a parent, I have known those moments of love driven to anger.  A child--in a moment of rebellion--may permanently scar herself.  My parental love longs to protect, even to the point of anger.

I think I understand a fraction of what You feel.  After all, You made me in Your image.  Thank You for loving Your Creation enough to be angry against that which would destroy us.  Protect me from wandering paths of self-destruction.  Remind me that I no longer need to hide!

In the Name of my Creator God who loves me that much,

Amen.