Our Waiting God
There's a great Hasid story about the teacher Rabbi Zolman. One
day his six- or seven-year-old son came bursting into the house,
just sobbing, crying his heart out. He said, "Daddy, we were playing
hide and seek," ...he may have addressed him in Hebrew. "Abba,
Daddy, I was hiding way out in the woods, and I waited out there,
behind the trees for hours. I didn't know that the kids had decided
not to play anymore. They didn't come and tell me, and I waited
out there." That wise and wonderful rabbi took his little boy in
his arms, and he rocked him and said, "Ah, my son, that's the way
it is with God. God plays hide and seek with us. God hides behind
the trees, but we have quit playing the game."

God loves to be found. God cries out, like a stage manager, clearing
his voice, "Ready," but the children don't come to play. The world
doesn't come to play with God. We miss the Messiah. God seems
hidden. Why don't we go in search?

--from the sermon "God Hidden in the Shadows"
by the Rev. Dr. Douglass M. Bailey

Read the sermon in its entirety.