I read a story from one of the monthly missionary magazines I subscribe to and thought to share the story with you.

The missionary said he once visited Bangladesh where he was introduced to a small group of Muslim elders in a village. According to him, he fitted well into the group until one of the elders walked up to him and stood very close – nose to nose. The elder then put his hands on the missionary’s shoulder and the missionary was asked by the guide to do the exact same to the elder. The elder was now staring deep into the eyes of the missionary and the missionary said he felt so uncomfortable. After the nose to nose and shoulder holding, the next thing expected was to stare into each other’s eyes and kiss each other on the cheek. This action had to be done twice for the villagers to consider this a genuine and heartfelt greeting. The missionary mentioned the fact that the situation was so awkward for him because of his discomfort with that level of intimacy. This mainly being because in the British culture, people have been conditioned to accept a certain level of intimacy with people we just meet. When that ‘acceptable’ level of intimacy was breached; the missionary became uncomfortable.

The missionary’s story reminded me of a practice our mentor once told us about. According to him, when he was in a Northern African country- for him to get accepted by the natives, he had to go visit with them and dine with them. In that culture, dinner is served in a bowl and the host feeds his guests by hand. You accepting the host feeding you their local meal means that you have fully accepted the people and their culture. Then, they in turn are now open to hear your message about Jesus and welcome you into their lives. Our mentor said, he went along with this practice because winning the people over was more important to him than the acceptance of this unusual level of intimacy. I asked myself if I would have been able to do the same if in the shoes of our mentors but I could not genuinely say a YES.

From the two stories above, it is obvious that many of us have expected levels of intimacy and we feel offended or uncomfortable when we think someone has invaded our privacy or our space. We draw a circle around ourselves sometimes and say to people and sometimes even to God, don’t move any closer. We allow people come as close as we feel comfortable. For various reasons, we hide and only allow people see so much or come so close. It is rather interesting to note that some people do not want to come too close to God because they think that if they grow closer to God, He will discover something He doesn’t like about them. What we tend to forget is that; God already knows everything about us, including our faults and He loves us just like that.

The psalmist puts it beautifully here
‘You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH ALL MY WAYS. Before a word is on my tongue, You LORD, know it completely.’ Psalm 139:1-4
God already knows us completely and there is really no point in hiding from Him. We may feel inadequate to show our weaknesses to man because we think they will judge us, but we can afford to show every aspect of ourselves to God. We can afford to develop an intimate relationship with Him because He is very familiar with ALL of our ways.

Do not be afraid to let God into any and all areas of your life because when He comes closer, His light will shine on every dark area and He will help you bring about change in all the areas that needs His touch.

Lastly, I’ve also come to realize that God plants us as Christians in a local church so we can be nurtured, built, protected and supported. To get the full benefit of such a provision however, we will need to allow the people God has placed around us to move closer so that they can bless us as God has always planned. We need to stop hiding.

The message therefore today is; Stop hiding and allow God to do His complete work in you.


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Thank you