The Hidden Place

The Hidden Place

by Bethany Hayes

Remember when Jesus said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow”? (Matthew 6:28)

He was teaching His disciples a lesson on trust and anxiety and leaving worrisome things in the hands of their Creator.

But how do lilies grow?
In a hidden place.

Right now, winter is passing into color, and a brighter world is springing up out of nowhere.

But where did this color and beauty come from?
From the dark.
In the hidden place.

This beauty and color and life out of dormancy is springing up from the dark.
From a hidden place.

Oswald Chambers once said,
“We imagine we are to be always above ground, shedding perfume and looking beautiful; or being continually cut and put into God’s show room to be admired, forgetting altogether that we cannot grow and be cut at the same time. We cannot be lilies unless we have spent time in the dark.”
(Still Higher for His Highest, p. 46)

We could never hope to be a source of joy and life and blessing until we’ve spent time in the dark.
Unless we’ve been in the hidden place.

I was there when these tulip bulbs were planted—small, round balls of hope buried deep in the dark for a brighter day. Buried deep in a hidden place, bearing up under the snow and cold of a different season, yet sharing life today.

Life buried deep in a hidden place will always shed joy and life and hope for others.

Because the hidden place of life in Christ is a place of peace and growth we could never experience any other way.

“Consider your hidden life with God,” Oswald Chambers also said.

That hidden life will bear up in the darkest seasons. That hidden place will always grow life that can’t be ignored.
Your hidden life in Him will bless others.

He will bless through you as you lie dormant in His embrace continually and contentedly.
Living for Him. Loving Him. Seeking His face. Resting in Him.
In the hidden place.

“Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3)