I Hid Myself

In the most recent general conference, Elder Scott D. Whiting spoke about what he called the “second temptation.” Adam and Eve’s first temptation was to partake of the forbidden fruit; the second was to hide when God came to see what they had done. We read, “And they heard the voice of the Lord God, as they were walking in the garden, in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife went to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” When God asked Adam where he was going, Adam replied, “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I beheld that I was naked, and I hid myself.” Elder Whiting told how as a young boy he had played a prank on his dad at a scout camp, at the behest of older boys, and when he went to hide, he sat on a cactus. He learned the hard way that hiding from what we have done wrong only makes matters worse. He remarked, “To those who may be in hiding, we implore you to come back. You need what the gospel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ offer, and we need what you offer. God knows your sins; you cannot hide from Him. Reconcile yourself before Him.” Hiding in our sins is not just applicable when we commit more serious sin; each day we can hide from our mistakes and weaknesses if we refuse to repent and really consider where we are falling short. We can easily convince ourselves that we are good enough and hide from the changes the Lord wants to help us make.

            On day three of kindergarten this week for my youngest daughter, she was upset in the morning because she had lost something and so she did not want to go to school. At one point she hid under our bed trying to escape our attempts to make her get ready for school. It reminded me of her oldest brother who one day many years ago decided he was not going to kindergarten and hid on the top bunk of a triple bunk bed. He had lost a tooth and was determined he was not going to school like that. He proved much more challenging to get to come out of hiding than his sister was this week, and both experiences remind me that ultimately we cannot hide from the Lord. As much as we wish that some of our actions or thoughts or desires were not known to the Lord, they are. Alma taught the people of Ammonihah, “For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence. But this cannot be; we must come forth and stand before him in his glory, and in his power, and in his might, majesty, and dominion, and acknowledge to our everlasting shame that all his judgments are just; that he is just in all his works, and that he is merciful unto the children of men, and that he has all power to save every man that believeth on his name and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance” (Alma 12:14-15). If we do not choose to repent, we will ultimately desire to hide from the Lord but will not be able to. The good news of the gospel is that instead of hiding from our sins, we can have them cleansed so that God will not remember them in the day of judgment.

            With a house full of kids, there never seems to be a shortage of dishes to clean. Sometimes, especially when our days are very busy, they can really pile up and the bowls or plates end of sitting for a while before we get to them all. I have often thought about the fact that the longer we wait to do the dishes, the more difficult it is to get them clean. For example, that bowl of Rice Krispies is easy to wash out right after my son only eats half of it; but let it sit for a day and that cereal sticks to the bowl like superglue. The longer the delay in cleaning, the more effort is required to get the food off the dishes. This fact, of which I’m reminded of so frequently, surely has a parallel in the gospel: the more we wait to address our sins and mistakes and rebellious behaviors, the harder it becomes to correct them. If we choose to hide them, hoping they’ll just go away, we may find that it is much harder to then overcome them later. The good news, though, is that even if we have delayed, there is always help through the Savior. Even when we may have done things the hard way, we can, as Elder Whiting testified, always “avail [ourselves] of the miraculous healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” For that cereal bowl with caked-on food, I have found that the best remedy is to let it simply soak for a while in water. Then with a little scrubbing it is manageable to get clean. And so, when we have sins that we are finally ready to address and overcome, we too need the Living Water of the Savior to change and purify us. As we strive to come to Him and hide our sins no longer, we have this powerful promise of the Lord through an ancient prophet: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:25-26).