Hiddenness

Years ago the story of Zachariah and Elizabeth struck me during a sermon as the pastor honed in on the truth that God answers our prayers even after we’ve stopped praying them.

Since then, their story has been a comfort in the impossible. God chose to fulfill their desire in the impossible, and that’s a testimony that God can do what we can’t even imagine. That's a reminder that God can still answer when the possibility seems past and that we can still hope when we cannot see or predict or fathom. 

Their story is also a testament to how God cares for us. How He will always work for our good even when we’ve given up on accepting that it’s possible. Whether that is giving up in despair or letting go in faith, if the prayer is His good, it will come in His time. Our God holds our desires tenderly and cares for our hearts in the waiting and in the answer. 

God used this testimony to increase my belief in His timing for the prayers that felt unanswered and to embolden me to continue to pray, to trust Him, and to surrender to Him. 

But after a couple years of holding this comfort, something else struck me about Zachariah and Elizabeth’s story. It’s easy to resist God’s good answer when it no longer feels good. When the impossibility feels bigger than the promise. When the fulfillment means opening your heart back up to the risk of getting hurt. 

It's hard to go through all the work of desires unfulfilled--surrendering our prayers to God, accepting His no, and continuing to trust in His goodness--and then to step back out into the risk of renewed hope and vulnerability, still trusting His goodness.  

And yet there is even comfort for us in our resistance. Zachariah resists God's answer, and yet Zachariah still received the fullness of the blessing he had prayed for. God is forever kind and good, and we cannot stop His purposes with our doubt. 

Over the last year, God has drawn me deeper into their story yet again to teach me His beauty in a powerful way. 

Luke 1:24 says, “After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden.”

That line was baffling to me the first time God pressed in on it. Elizabeth is faced with God’s miraculous provision, with the answer to a prayer she’d long since stopped believing in, with the fulfillment of the deep desire of her heart—Shouldn’t she be shouting it from the rooftops? Shouldn’t she be celebrating with everyone she knows? How could she keep it in? 

I could never. 

But as I processed through just how different I am from Elizabeth, God started to reveal that He was calling me into hiddenness too. 

Often when I think of things being hidden, I think of people hiding. Of secrets or even of people who live more privately. But those aren’t me. I don’t want to live in secret, I don’t like deceiving, which can be tied to secrets, and I like opening my life to others and sharing it with them. But as God has journeyed me through hiddenness, I’ve begun to see its beauty.

The key here is that Elizabeth was not hiding but was hidden away with God. Her instinct in this blessing, in this deep fulfillment of her heart, was to draw into intimacy with God. Like Mary, she took time to treasure these things in her heart. 

Community is beautiful, and it can bring such joy to share God’s blessings with them. But too often my community is the first place I go, and I miss the sweetness of drawing into God first and treasuring my joy with Him alone.

It's so much sweeter to draw into intimacy with God and enjoy His blessing with Him. To come in before I move out. To seek His voice and His heart and to give Him praise. To take the time to sit in who He is and glory in His kindness.

Hiddenness is an invitation into intimacy. Into the joy of delighting in the gift with the Gift-Giver.

I’ve also found that hiddenness is a protection. 

My heart is prone to fear, and at one point or another in the midst of the joy, fear and overthinking will likely creep in. In that place my tendency is to go to others and get their advice. Godly counsel is wise, and yet I've often seen my confusion being increased as in my anxiety I've invited in too many voices (or because I’ve already involved them, they invite themselves). 

In the protection of hiddenness, however, I've learned to seek God's voice first. When I haven't had another place to go because nobody else knew, I've had to rely on God and trust that I can hear Him. And in that place He has been the calmer of my fears and the restorer of my mind, re-centering me on His presence and protection. 

And perhaps the sweetest lesson of hiddenness has been the reality that some things are just for me and God. That we hold them together.

The path of hiddenness draws us into God first, delighting with Him and giving Him praise, but in most cases the time will come to share the blessing with others.

The path of hiddenness offers protection, allowing God to be our counselor more than all the voices around us and growing our trust that He will hold, guide, and protect us. Even when we seek the counsel of others, hiddenness teaches us to go to God first and to move out slowly and intentionally. 

But the path of hiddenness also teaches us that even when the blessing is made public, some things are just for us. Some details—while not bad to share—are ones we can keep to ourselves, storing them away with God and delighting in them with Him. I have found such sweetness in these moments that belong just to God and me. The ones that we get to hold together that I don’t enjoy with anyone else but Him. 

Through the life of Zachariah and Elizabeth, I have learned that my God is big—His means are infinite, His timing is good, His heart is gracious—that my God is tender, that my God covers us, and that nothing is sweeter than being hidden with Him, enjoying His presence and delighting in His heart.