WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING WHEN GOD DOESN’T SEEM TO BE PRESENT?
I am constantly amazed at the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, revelation, and power in my life. I love the way He reveals who Jesus is to me, which has changed my life.
He has made me more excited and in awe and wonder of the great love that God has for me.
Have you ever had no answers to pressing needs. You have so many questions, and so little revelation and experience of God in which you find the answers.
Where is He when I need Him the most?
“What do you do when God seems so far away, and you can’t feel His presence?”
I have learned to have a conversation with God in a new way. I have developed a whole new perception of spiritual reality and a language to go with it. I have learned the ways of God, when He manifests Himself to me in such a tangible way, and the times when He hides himself and I have to wait upon the Lord in stillness so that I can get a deeper revelation of the hidden mystery of His work inside of me.
THE WAYS OF GOD
At certain times in life, we feel the presence of God very tangibly. Our whole life seems touched by His presence, and we freely enjoy being with Him.
At other times, God seems to be distant or even absent. We don’t feel His presence in the same way as we did—maybe not at all.
We don’t experience the sense of peace and well-being that we enjoyed before. Why is this? Is it normal? Is it because we have done something wrong?
I believe the answer lies in understanding the ways of God more fully and deeply and learning to live accordingly.
There are seasons of manifestation of the Spirit when the Lord just touches our lives in a supernatural way and we have meeting after meeting with Him, as He pursues us and reveals Himself to us. Then there are seasons when it seems as if God is hiding Himself and we must run and search after him.
“MANIFESTATION” IS ABOUT E X P E R I E N C I N G ALL THAT GOD IS DOING.
“HIDDENNESS” IS ABOUT POSSESSING THE THINGS OF GOD THROUGH HIS WORD BY FAITH WHEN ALL OUR PHYSICAL SENSES SEEM CONTRARY.
Living within the flow of these seasons is a serious spiritual discipline we need to learn. Once you understand them and learn to flow with them, you will enjoy a real sense of freedom and will not be tossed about by emotions or circumstances as you once were.
Manifestation describes the times when you feel God’s presence and His touch upon your life in a very immediate way. He is just there! Those times are wonderful and effortless, and seem to be Sovereign experiences.
But God also brings seasons of hiddenness into your life, and although He is still very much present with you, you don’t feel His presence in the same way. It seems at times that God strips away all the external indications that He is with you.
At those times, you must believe that you have peace with God, because you don’t feel it in your emotions.
Manifestation is about experiencing all that God is doing.
Hiddenness is about possessing the things of God through His Word just by faith in what His word says.
During times of hiddenness, you must learn to rely on the promises that God has made to you through the Bible.
MANIFESTATION IS A TIME OF BLESSING AND HIDDENNESS IS A TIME OF SPIRIT BUILDING
Perhaps the simplest way to explain it is to say that manifestation is a time of blessing; hiddenness is a time of building.
God desires to bring you through seasons of hiddenness because He wants you to learn the discipline of walking by the Spirit and not according to your soul.
WALKING WITH GOD
Developing an ongoing walk with God by the power of the Holy Spirit is a discipline. Practicing faith is a discipline.
Hiddenness is God’s way of establishing these disciplines in your life. Once established, they prevent the enemy from invading your life and hitting you, because regardless of your emotions, you know His presence is still with you and you learn how to find the presence of God deep inside your spirit; and know he is working inside of you, even when He seems not to be working, because He is always working in you whether you feel Him or not.
Understanding the fact that sometimes God is hidden and sometimes manifesting His Presence will ground you in your faith and help you to have a more consistent walk with Him.
Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, you will know how to live in the grace of God. Some days you will feel very close to God, and other days you won’t—but it won’t matter, because you will know that you can live, enjoying God’s presence when you feel it, and enjoying living in your faith when you don’t.
HIDDENESS
God reveals Himself through manifestation where we feel His manifest presence in our soul, and through hiddenness where we sense Him in our innermost being, our spirit.
Hiddenness connects us with God’s wisdom, and wisdom is the revelation of who God is and the internal recognition of how He likes to work in our lives.
Faith depends upon one thing—your understanding of the nature of God. Faith which is rooted in a sure understanding of the nature of God and what He is for you like will never be short of things to believe for.
You know what God is like, you know that He is faithful, that He’ll never leave you or forsake you, that He’s made provision for you, you know God never changes… and so on.
Faith in the nature of God is what keeps you moving even when situations are against you. Because you know that God is faithful, when a situation seems unwelcoming or even impossible, you know just enough to wait for Him to come to your aid.
“I know You, Lord, You’re here somewhere. I’m just going to wait until You come or wait until You speak. I know You’re doing something. I haven’t figured out what it is yet, but I’m just going to wait because I know You.”
REAL WISDOM IS HIDDEN
“From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living.” (Job 28:20-21a)
Real wisdom is hidden from us until God reveals it to us. He often chooses to do that in the place of hiddenness. Hiddenness is God’s training ground. In hiddenness God is teaching us the wisdom of how to walk with Him, how to know Him, how to understand Him and how to live a life of reverent fear.
David said, “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom” (Psalm 51:6), because he understood eventually that hiddenness and wisdom went together.
Likewise, Paul said, “However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages of our glory.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-7)
In times of manifestation, we cannot hear deep truth. If we do hear God speak while we are enjoying a season of His blessing, often we don’t understand what He is saying. Times of manifestation are about experiencing God. They are about moving in a flow of body ministry—participating in the peace, joy and life of God.
Hiddenness is a different thing altogether—it is about understanding the deep things of God.
HIDDENNESS IS WHERE WE PROCESS DEEP TRUTH
“Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.’ But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.” (Luke 18:31-34)
John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
After Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, when He breathed into them the Holy spirit which resulted in the quickening of their spirit where it became conscious of God, born from above, suddenly things began to come clear for His disciples. Much of what He had told them while they were enjoying His presence, they had not understood.
When they saw Him, resurrected and standing once again in their midst however, numerous things He had said flooded back to them and suddenly made sense.
A time of manifestation is not a time to understand deep truth, but to experience God, which is what He wants for us.
Hiddenness is where we start to process really deep truth.
HIDDENNESS DEVELOPS THE INNER MAN OF THE SPIRIT
In our Christian lives, it is the Holy Spirit who promotes the internal development of our inner man—our spirit.
We don’t gain spiritual maturity by accumulating knowledge, but by increasing in godly wisdom. This kind of wisdom comes from above and cannot be gained by academic study.
James chapter 3 tells us that there are two kinds of wisdom; one is earthly and natural. Often this kind of wisdom appears to have some merit but is usually rooted in the value systems of the world.
If we take too much notice of this kind of wisdom it can lead us into a place where we become vulnerable to demonic influence as we become philosophical about our beliefs.
By contrast, the supernatural wisdom that James refers to is pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruit and unwavering in its convictions about God.
You will increase in this supernatural wisdom as you learn to be with God in hiddenness. The wisdom you gain from this experience can give you a whole new perspective on situations in your life. It will produce in you a rest and a peace which, frankly, will be astonishing to you.
There is an intriguing verse in Revelation chapter 2 that says, “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat.” (Revelation 2:17b)
What I find interesting about this particular verse is that it was spoken to a church in Pergamum that was situated in the middle of occult territory.
The leaders had deliberately planted a church in the center of a demonic stronghold. How’s that for bravery! They had picked the darkest place they could find to plant their church.
IN THE TIME OF GREATEST PERSECUTION, THEY WOULD KNOW HOW TO LIVE IN THE SECRET PLACE OF GOD
Other Christians had been martyred there and there was tremendous opposition to the Gospel. Yet, despite the constant persecution they suffered, God spoke to them of “hidden manna.” This was their inheritance word—that in the time of greatest persecution, they would know how to live in the secret place of God. He would provide additional revelation for them—hidden manna.
It is very significant to note that God did not aim to take away the oppression, but to provide more revelation. Why? Because if we are going to learn to be overcomers, then we must allow ourselves to develop internally.
God is more interested in the state of our inner man than our outward circumstances. The hiddenness of God is all about that internal development.
In times of manifestation we focus outwardly on God and the blessings He showers on our lives.
In hiddenness we devote ourselves inwardly to God, yielding to Him in the things that He wants to do in our life.
The Lord wants each one of us to be able to live from the inside out, and to fully understand the process of internal development in Him.
LEARNING TO LIVE INWARDLY
In manifestation, we rejoice in our experience of the presence of God and we are surrounded by Him. We hear His voice, we’re touched by Him, there’s lightness in our spirit, a joy in His presence. There’s a strength, an ease in worship and prayer in times like that. The love of God fills us and there’s a release of His anointing. There’s an enjoyment of God—His favor. God loves to show Himself to us in those times and seasons.
In hiddenness, God is still there, but He’s hiding Himself because He wants to teach us a different way of living—one that does not depend upon our experience of Him. Now we have something much deeper by which to process our lives. He removes the visible in order to teach us to walk by faith, not by sight; to teach us how to live inwardly. I believe that it is hiddenness which establishes our capacity to rest in the Lord. Hiddenness promotes a quietness of soul—our mind and emotions stilled before God. We have to learn how to submit our emotions to the discipline of life in the Spirit. To be able to bring yourself to a place of peace is an important discipline to have. Although it takes some time to learn, it is possible to develop it to the extent that you can bring yourself to a place of peace within a few seconds, regardless of the circumstances affecting you. It’s just a discipline. It’s no different from learning to drive a car or use a washing machine.
It is evident from the Scriptures that God has used this strategy of hiddenness for a long time. Early on in the Old Testament we see it in His dealings with Jacob: “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’” (Genesis 28:16)
Here we see retrospective revelation, in other words, looking back and realizing that God was there with you. It’s OK to live there, but what God really wants is progressive revelation— where we trust that He is with us whether He is visible or not. That’s the training which working within hiddenness can give you. It provides you with the ability to recognize God when He is present, not after the event.
EBB AND FLOW
Beloved one, see yourself in the Spirit. Do you not know that you are in no way tied to just the natural world? There is an old and limitless power available to you as you learn to step back into your inner man of the Spirit. This anointing is like the creative operation of the ocean. Wave after wave of revelation, power and anointing will wash over you as you learn to stand in the right place.
This place in the Spirit demands a transparency of honesty and a purity of heart. I will help you to lower your resistance to the work of the Holy Spirit.
This is the dawn of a new season in your life, where the Son will rise upon you with a new warmth and light. What now may be possible for you? What dreams long buried in your heart may surface to receive faith and recognition? What now may emerge in your relationship with me that will bring you into an increased significance of the Spirit? Come away from the natural as you learn to be his bride, his beauty, his love.
THE DISCIPLES ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS
There is a classic example of hiddenness and manifestation exemplified throughout chapter 24 of Luke’s Gospel. This passage of Scripture provides us with a number of clues to why God should choose to move in hiddenness.
Examining these in more detail will help us to understand the extent of what God wants to do in each of our lives. Beginning at verse 13 we read: “Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him. And He said to them, ‘What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?’ Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?’ And He said to them, ‘What things?’ So they said to Him, ‘The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.’
Then He said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, ‘Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent’. And He went in to stay with them.
Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?’ so they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.” (Luke 24:13-35)
PRESENT BUT NOT VISIBLE
Jesus was with the disciples, but their eyes were prevented from seeing him. Hiddenness.
God hides for a reason—so that He can develop you on the inside and train you to see with the eyes of faith.
In manifestation you can already see what God is doing. In hiddenness you learn to look inward and recognize that God is still at work, relying purely on your faith.
IN HIDDENNESS GOD HELPS US TO HAVE A RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
One of the reasons for hiddenness is that God wants to help us clarify our thoughts and come to the right spiritual perspective.
These two disciples were talking to each other on the road to Emmaus, trying to understand everything that had been happening.
Sometimes as Christians we have endless discussions with no revelatory breakthrough. Usually, the result of endless discussion is to come full circle and arrive back at your starting point. You are still confused and you still don’t understand. The discussion has not taken you anywhere. The disciples were at this point. For all their debate, they had no true spiritual perspective from which they could process the events they were living through.
In such a case, God’s hiddenness is what helps us to get back “on the level” in the Spirit—to process the circumstances from the point of view of faith and come to a place of peace.
It is not essential that we understand everything, but that we trust God in everything. If you are always seeking to be in a “manifest” relationship with God, then when the times of hiddenness come, you will only ever have a superficial understanding of what is going on in the spiritual realm.
We must dig for truth and sometimes we try to understand things with our natural minds, with our human reasoning. He says, “Come now, let us reason together.” The rest of the time He says “Don’t lean on your own understanding, trust Me.”
Before we open our minds to think through an event or circumstance that is troubling us, it is helpful to come to a place of worship. To set the problem aside and just focus on worshiping God. The place of worship is the place of trust and faith in God’s presence. In the midst of our worship we are renewed in spirit and mind and can more easily access a deeper level of spiritual wisdom.
Because the disciples had no true supernatural perspective to help them process what was happening, they were bound to arrive at some kind of soulish analysis of the situation. A soulish, or purely emotional analysis of events, will usually lead you to become sad and downhearted because you can’t understand why these things are so. “I’m confused. Why has this happened? I thought God was doing something here, but I don’t understand it.”
When you reach this place, it is then easy to begin blaming the enemy, assuming it to be an attack. We think, “It must be the enemy trying to confuse me and stop me from understanding.” Yet it’s not the enemy, it’s just God saying, “Listen, this is how I like to work. I want you to learn how to live from the inside.”
We need to learn how to turn inward to find out what God is actually doing at this point in time. Being sad and downhearted is one of the signs that people are not processing their hiddenness in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
Yet it’s interesting that our sadness does not deflect the Lord from His objective: to develop our inner man.
Often we are sad in times of hiddenness until we learn how to process it properly. Then, we learn how to rejoice in God from the inside to the outside, because we know that God is faithful and He is always working.
DEEP TRUTH REVEALED
Through hiddenness God seeks to uncover our wrong perspectives and bring us face to face with them. We find in verse 18 that the disciples had a perception of what had been happening during this whole season in Jerusalem. They spoke of Jesus the Nazarene who was a prophet. They said nothing about Him being the Son of God, but instead reverted to type. They talked about how He was a prophet, mighty in deed and word in the sight of God, and how He was delivered up to the sentence of death and crucified.
This was the soulish perspective on who Jesus was and what had happened to Him. It was a conclusion that any onlooker, not a disciple, might have come to. In the midst of the shock of Jesus’ death, the disciples were processing the “facts” on a purely human level, with no insight into the spiritual realm.
God uses hiddenness, therefore, to shed light on our ignorance and inform us about what He is really doing. He reveals the deeper truths to us that are imperceptible on the surface.
One way in which God does this is to come and ask us questions. The questions are asked not because God is in need of information from us, but because they uncover things that we had not perceived.
GOD DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK IN THE WAY WE EXPECT HIM TO
Sometimes we are convinced that we know what’s going on and God has to break through our ignorance. Often that will make us feel slightly worse about a situation, until we stop pretending we know everything and go to God for help.
When we simply come to God, humble ourselves, and say, “Father, I haven’t a clue what’s going on. Would You just let me in on what You’re doing? It would be really helpful,” that is when we reach a place of incredible liberty and peace.
Hiddenness helps us to process our own disappointments with God, because if we’re honest, we sometimes have a perception of how God should be, how things should work, and what He should be doing.
When things don’t happen the way we expect, we live with a sense of disappointment that maybe God has in some way let us down.
The disciples said to one another, “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” They had this expectation of God which He had no intention of fulfilling at that time.
I wonder how many of us are living with an expectation of God which He has no desire or intention to fulfill in our life, because our expectation is faulty? Often our hopes and expectations about God are built on very shaky thinking and need to be pulled down.
Hiddenness will pull down the things which shouldn’t be there. That’s part of the dynamic of it. Jesus overturned several major expectations that the Jewish people in general were holding on to:
FIRSTLY, REGARDING THE MANNER OF HIS COMING. HE CAME AS A SERVANT, NOT A KING. THAT DIDN’T COMPUTE WITH THE JEW’S VIEW OF THE MESSIAH. THE FACT THAT HE CAME AS A SERVANT, BORN IN A STABLE IN UNFAVORABLE CIRCUMSTANCES DIDN’T COME IN LINE WITH THEIR THINKING, AND SO THEY RULED OUT THE POSSIBILITY THAT HE WAS THE MESSIAH. IN THEIR EYES HE HAD DISQUALIFIED HIMSELF BY THE MANNER OF HIS COMING.
SECONDLY, HE DISAPPOINTED THEM IN THE SENSE OF WHO HE CAME FOR. JESUS DIDN’T JUST COME TO SAVE THE JEWS, HE CAME TO SAVE THE GENTILES ALSO—EVERYBODY IN FACT. SOMETHING WHICH RADICALLY SHOOK THE JEWS’ THINKING ABOUT THE MESSIAH. HIDDENNESS WILL PULL DOWN THE THINGS WHICH SHOULDN’T BE THERE.
THIRDLY, THE JEWS MISUNDERSTOOD THE MESSIAH’S MAIN PURPOSE—TO ESTABLISH A SPIRITUAL KINGDOM, NOT TO RESCUE ISRAEL FROM THE ROMANS. THE JEWS VIEWED THE MESSIAH AS SOMEONE WHO WOULD DELIVER ISRAEL, BUT HE NEVER HAD ANY INTENTION OF PHYSICALLY DOING THAT.
Jesus overturned all of the major expectations of the Jewish people, which is why so many of them failed to receive Him as the Messiah.
The Scriptures reveal just how deeply ingrained in the Jewish mindset these expectations were. After Jesus’ resurrection, having spent forty days teaching and just being with His disciples, they still asked Him the question, “Is this the time you’re restoring the Kingdom to Israel?” They still didn’t yet fully understand what He came for and what He was doing. Because Jesus had no desire or intention to fulfill the expectations of the Jews, they missed Him. Likewise, we often miss what God is really doing because of our false expectations. It is the work of the enemy to sow such unrealistic expectations in our hearts.
What God does in hiddenness is to process our disillusionment, from the inside to the outside in order to get rid of it. Hiddenness is always about a change of heart towards God, which in turn provokes a change of heart towards the people around us.
INFORMATION VERSUS REVELATION
Hiddenness will also expose your unbelief. In Luke 24:22 the disciples say, “Some women amongst us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the morning. They didn’t find Jesus’ body. They came to us saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who spoke to them, saying that Jesus was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it exactly as the women had said, but they didn’t see Him— they didn’t see anything.” The disciples had received some clues from the women regarding Jesus’ resurrection but were still somewhat unconvinced.
Maybe it was their prejudice against women which prevented them from believing. Who knows? Maybe they thought it was too good to be true? Maybe they were too intellectual in their approach to what was happening?
In such situations we have to learn the difference between information and revelation. You cannot receive revelation in your mind. Our minds can only receive information and process logic. You receive revelation in your spirit and the vehicle that takes that revelation from your spirit into your conscious mind is faith.
Revelation is a spiritual thing because a relationship with God is an affair of the spirit. Your spirit receives truth that your mind is then exposed to. When you are renewed in the spirit of your mind about what God is saying to you, then you see it on a totally different level.
IN HIDDENNESS GOD ANSWERS OUR QUESTIONS AND TEACHES US HIS WAYS
Revelation which is received in the spirit initially may offend the mind. Maybe that is what happened here with the disciples. What they had heard regarding Jesus’ resurrection didn’t sound logical or reasonable. But God wanted them to get beyond the logic and see the truth He was revealing to their spirits. As we believe what God is saying to our spirit, then our mind makes the adjustment, and so we’re renewed in the spirit of our mind.
In times of hiddenness, God begins to answer the questions buried deep in our hearts and to instruct us in His ways and thoughts.
That is why Jesus began to expound the Scriptures to the two disciples and reveal the truth. Often we want physical, emotional or mental stimuli to help us process events, but revelation is born into the spirit man.
Until we learn to live from our spirit, we will always be processing life from the soul, from our mind, emotions and will and reason and a defiled concience.
Yet so often our thinking is defective or confused, and our emotions are fluctuating from one extreme to another. When we are unsettled like this in our emotions, then we must learn how to consciously “retreat” into the inner man of the spirit to get our focus back upon God.
We do that through worship, prayers of submission, an inner yielding, and by turning to the heart of God through obedience using our will. The submission of our will to God through obedience is the entry point to the spiritual realm.
If you find submitting your will to God difficult, you can come before Him and ask for help. When you turn your will over to Him, He can then work in you to bring you to the place where He wants you (Philippians 2:13).
When God’s desire and your desire match up, He is then released to work in you and through you.
Hiddenness, then, is a major part of enabling you to partner with the Holy Spirit in what God is doing. If you don’t know or understand something, go straight to a place of rest and trust, and wait for God in worship. It’s just a discipline—you can do it.
The Holy Spirit will begin to come and take hold of you. If you set your mind on the problem first, you’ll only process things from your point of ignorance.
If your spirit gets hold of the problem, however, then you will release faith towards God. Some people believe that God is not at work until they see some manifestation of His power. They don’t “see” anything happening and so are fooled into believing that God is not at work.
So, it was with the Emmaus disciples. They didn’t understand everything until they saw Him, and then it was “Oh…I see.” Enter the “Oh” factor. “Oh, right, I understand now.” If this is where you are in your relationship with God, it’s OK. It’s not wrong to be there, but don’t stay there long term, because that’s not the goal of spiritual maturity.
Our aim should be to reach the place where we have the “Oh…” factor in our present circumstances—those that are affecting us right now— so that we can relax and trust that God is at work in our lives now.
That is a much more powerful place to be in, and the best reason to be there is because God wants it; it is His chosen way of deepening our relationship with Him.
You’ll find in hiddenness that God always talks about Himself and reveals Himself in those times. Jesus began to talk to the disciples, expounding the subject of the Cross and how it can be seen all throughout the Scriptures in order to teach them about Himself.
In hiddenness God loves to tell you all about Himself, but He wants to have you all to Himself to do it. As you learn the discipline of retreating into your spirit, you will find that God is actually extremely fluent and communicative. He loves to share things with us, but He wants to do it in a particular place in a particular way.
Most of my understanding about the nature of God—His kindness, goodness and mercy—has come to me in times of hiddenness, when God has just spoken to me, telling me and convincing me of who He is and what He’s really like.
IN HIDDENNESS GOD ALWAYS WANTS TO GO FURTHER THAN WE DO
In Luke 24 we read: “(Jesus) indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, ‘Abide in us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.’ And He went in to stay with them.” (Luke 24:28b-29) I think there was more that Jesus wanted to share with the disciples about Himself—more revelation which would probably have brought them into a deeper understanding of truth, but they urged him to stay. It was as if they had reached their limit and couldn’t absorb any more revelation for a while. Jesus graciously consented to stay with them.
I believe that if our capacity to enjoy hiddenness is limited, then our experience and understanding of God will be limited by the same measure.
You should stay in hiddenness until God pushes you out. Jesus would have gone further, but the disciples were not capable. In fact, Jesus said to His disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12)
It is interesting that in hiddenness God always wants to go further than we do. We need to learn to stay in the place of hiddenness, in God’s presence, until we receive everything that God has for us during that time. It is easy to break off from hiddenness too soon.
In our hearts we may secretly feel that really manifestation is the better thing, and that hiddenness is second best. In reality, there is no difference between the two—they are both wonderful! You just need to learn to live in them both. God always wants to go that extra mile, and He wants to take us with Him.
There is a discipline attached to being hidden with God, and you have to learn the joy of that discipline, staying there until God moves you on. He will often do this by bringing you into manifestation, but if you move on before God tells you to then you will miss something.
Don’t seek just for experience; stay hidden until God says it’s time to move on. When we become comfortable with the ways of God in hiddenness, we find ourselves going further in the realm of the Spirit than ever before. We’ll go further than we ever thought possible in our present circumstances, because He’ll take us to a place of deeper revelation, and we will experience a bigger breakthrough.
I believe that Jesus revealed His identity prematurely to His disciples, because they were in danger of totally missing the point of what He was saying.
Sometimes our desire for manifestation and blessing can reduce our capacity to be nurtured in the spiritual realm and we’ll miss something.
Jesus must have decided that they had reached capacity in terms of the revelation that He could impart to them and so suddenly He revealed Himself and they began rejoicing. “Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.” (Luke 24:30-31)
Everything was much clearer now in the disciples’ thinking and perception. Their eyes had been opened, everything had come into focus, and they couldn’t wait to share the truth with other people. But Jesus vanished as soon as He had manifested Himself to them.
I believe He vanished because the disciples did not have the maturity to walk with Him in that place. They could have experienced more—I think God was certainly willing—but they were unable to receive it.
As God builds up your inner man with the progressive revelation of who He is, you are inevitably changed and transformed. You begin to reflect those qualities of God’s character that have been revealed to you and you become a living testimony of what God is like.
Because you know that God is faithful, you become faithful by the word He has given you. That is why Jesus said things like, “Now you are clean through the word I have spoken to you,” because the word which God gives you in hiddenness takes hold of your life and changes you.
REST IS A WEAPON
Every experience of God’s manifestation in our lives is a bonus. I am choosing to live my life in hiddenness, so that when God’s manifestation comes it’s a bonus. I want to live in that place of constantly yielding inwardly to find the presence of God—the place that, even in the eye of the storm, is one of tranquility, peace and of rest. In such a place, rest becomes a weapon against the enemy.
You can exasperate the devil, because when he comes against you, you don’t fight against him, but submit to God (James 4:7). In fact, it is not our job to fight the devil. Our job is to step back into God and experience His majesty and power.
Christ has overcome the devil, so we need to focus on being in Christ. You never have to go looking for the devil. If you live in Christ he’ll come and find you. Jesus never went looking for the devil. Everywhere He went the devil appeared and tried to oppose Him.
Our spiritual warfare therefore, should not be about becoming occupied with the devil, but about becoming occupied with God.
Real warfare is about discovering the majesty, the supremacy and the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Warfare is about seeking the face of God and enjoying Him as your fortress and your refuge.
In the place of rest, hidden with God, He is able to reveal to us strategies to overcome in any situation. We see this in the life of King David who constantly sought the Lord’s directions, especially concerning battle strategies.
When the Philistines came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim, David went to the Lord and asked, “Shall I go up against them?” (2 Samuel 5:19). He wasn’t worried about what the Philistines were doing, he just got into the presence of God and said “You’re in control of this; what should I do?” The Lord said to him, “Go up directly.” David did what the Lord told him and so he won the battle.
When the enemy came again into the valley of Rephaim, David sought the Lord again and asked, “Shall I go up directly against them?” He was basing his logic on his previous experience. It worked last time, so perhaps it would work again? Sometimes referring to your experience is fine, but at other times it’s your experience that prevents you from getting the breakthrough. But relying on what you know can never be a substitute for getting revelation.
David needed to ask the Lord, “Is there a new strategy, new tactics you want me to use?” In this instance God said, “No, don’t go directly up. Don’t do what you did last time. Circle around behind them and stand in the balsam trees and when you hear the wind blowing in the tops of the trees, then go out and you’ll win.”
Often God has to employ totally different tactics in dealing with us because He doesn’t want us to revert to relying on our experience. The only time you should rely on your experience is when God isn’t saying anything new. If He doesn’t give you any new tactics that is His way of saying “Do what you did last time.” But you still need to come before God and say, “Lord, what do You want to do in these circumstances?” This is all part of seeking refuge in His hiddenness and living in that fortress—the inner, secret place of the presence of God.
Scripture has many other examples of hiddenness and manifestation we can learn from. In John chapter 20, Mary is in the garden of Gethsemane, grieving over the death of Jesus. Now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher). (John 20:14-16)
It’s always a personal moment with God which takes us from hiddenness to manifestation. For Mary He just had to say her name and suddenly that was it. At first she thought that Jesus was the gardener until He spoke her name, then she realized who He was.
This switch from hiddenness to manifestation was intensely personal. It is often this way with God. In the context of friendship and fellowship He speaks out your name and suddenly everything is different.
In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul who was being buffeted by the enemy, desperately wanted a manifestation of God’s power to deliver him. But God wanted Paul in hiddenness, to experience His grace and to make Paul aware of his own weakness. God wanted Paul to be kept. That is a characteristic of hiddenness, being kept, and the experience brought Paul into a whole new realm of God’s sovereignty. A whole new acquaintance with the majesty of God was born in Paul’s life and a whole new dimension of anointing came out of it.
He emerged from that season with an understanding of the spiritual realm so deep that he could barely handle with it.
In Acts chapter 10 we read about the revelation God gave to Peter in a vision detailing how He desired to reach out to the Gentiles. Peter did not really understand what was going on, but after some persuasion, simply obeyed God.
“The next day…Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.’ And a voice spoke to him again the second time, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common.’ This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again. Now while Peter wondered within himself what this vision which he had seen meant, behold, the men who had been sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate. And they called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was lodging there. While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Behold, three men are seeking you. Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them.’” (Acts 10:9-20)
Peter had the vision three times—a sheet lowered down from Heaven full of creepy crawlies and a voice saying “Arise, Peter, kill and eat.” Peter’s immediate reaction to the Lord was, “That’s not kosher—we don’t do this sort of stuff Lord. You wrote the book, remember?” He was perplexed.
Sometimes when we are in hiddenness we are confused and uncertain. But Peter obeyed God and he went, even with his reservations. God had told him, “Arise and go, without misgiving.”
Although Peter had many concerns about what he was being told to do, nevertheless, he went in obedience and entered the house of the Gentiles. At that moment he also entered the realm of spiritual insight.
He said, “I perceive now that God is no respecter of persons.” Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.” (Acts 10:34-35) It should not be underestimated what a momentous occasion this was for Peter.
In a moment his entire mindset of ministry changed as the inclusion of the Gentiles in all that God was doing came sharply into focus.
I believe it was God’s way of dealing with Peter’s prejudice and racism because there seems to be no doubt that Peter was a racist. He would say one thing to the Jews and a different thing to the Gentiles. God was healing and delivering him from that mindset.
In hiddenness and manifestation, being perplexed and learning to perceive things differently are key learning points. It’s OK to be perplexed, so long as you’re learning how to perceive spiritual realities on a different level.
RING OF FIRE
My child, stay in Me. My ring of fire is your protection. Live in Me and rest. As you learn to remain in the secret place of the Most High, You will be invisible to the evil one. When the clamor and pressure of warfare is great around you, Know that it is just the enemy seeking to get you to break cover in panic. Fear reveals where you are hiding. Your place is to dwell, to rest, to stay and remain in the Secret Place of My Spirit. It is an attitude of heart and mind combining to enable you to sit in transparent fellowship.
The more transparent your heart is before Me, the more obscure you are to the enemy. When the evil one seeks to do his worst, you may relax in Me as I do My Best!
DIFFERENT REACTIONS TO HIDDENNESS
The life of King David provides us with some good examples of common reactions to hiddenness. Have you ever asked yourself the question when you read the Psalms, “Why did David go through so many similar experiences?” Simply put, it’s because he kept failing his tests. Why did he constantly return to the same themes throughout the Psalms? Because God was trying to get this “thicko” to learn how to live in the Spirit! David speaks of the same experiences over and over again, until he finally learns how to walk with God. He frequently misunderstood God in times of hiddenness and sometimes even thought that God had totally rejected him.
“GOD HAS FORGOTTEN ME”
Hence in Psalm 44 David says, Why do You hide Your face, And forget our affliction and our oppression?… Arise for our help, And redeem us for Your mercies’ sake. (Psalm 44:24, 26)
On the surface this seems like a good prayer, but underlying it is actually a very soulish reaction. It’s a prayer asking for manifestation in a time of hiddenness. David cries out, “God, you’ve forgotten about me!” He completely missed the point of what God was trying to do in him.
“GOD HAS REJECTED ME”
Similarly, in Psalm 88 David says, Lord, why do You cast off my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? (Psalm 88:14) Initially, David saw the whole idea of hiddenness as rejection, thinking God had had enough of him and cast him away.
“GOD IS ANGRY WITH ME”
In Psalm 89 David says, How long, Lord? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is; (I’m running out of time here God— do something!) For what futility have You created all the children of men? What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his life from the power of the grave? Selah. Lord, where are Your former lovingkindnesses, Which You swore to David in Your truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of Your servants— How I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, With which Your enemies have reproached, O Lord, With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. Blessed be the Lord forevermore! Amen and Amen. (Psalm 89:46-52)
Again, all this sounds really spiritual, but it isn’t! It’s very soulish. David is pouring out his emotions and missing the point.
In verses 50–51 he is trying to justify his prayer of restoration, which gives you a clue to his mindset—he basically just wants to be delivered and set free.
It seems a good prayer but he is trying to escape the purposeful time of hiddenness that God has led him into. David puts the whole process down to the wrath of God. “God is angry with me for some reason,” he thought, “That’s why this is happening to me.”
“GOD IS PUNISHING ME BECAUSE OF SOME SIN”
Job had a similar problem to David. In Job chapter 13 we hear the plea: “Why do You hide Your face, And regard me as Your enemy?” (Job 13:24) All Job can see at that moment is his own situation. He cannot yet see the hand of God, so he mistakes everything as God’s wrath.
This is probably the most common mistake that people make—to think that hiddenness, the lack of God’s tangible presence, occurs because He is angry with us for some reason. We usually assume that He is angry because we have, either knowingly or unknowingly, committed some terrible sin.
There are rare occasions when God hides His face because of sin, but this is not generally the reason for His hiddenness.
The prophet Isaiah did make mention of such occasions however: …You have hidden Your face from us And have consumed us because of our iniquities. (Isaiah 64:7)
For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid and was angry, And he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. (Isaiah 57:17)
This is obviously not the case now in the light of the new covenant in Christ. Jesus’ soul became a sin offering for our sin and makes His grace available to us in Christ.
Now we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way (Hebrews 10:19-20). Because of that we can draw near with confidence to “…the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need,” (Hebrews 4:16).
That our sin is covered is part of the glorious good news of the gospel!
WHEN GOD HIDES HIS FACE, PEOPLE ARE DISMAYED
In Psalm 104:29 David says, “You hide Your face, they are troubled…”. This is a typically soulish response to hiddenness. God hides and we’re freaking out.
David continues saying, …You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And you renew the face of the earth. (Psalm 104:29-30)
In other words, when God hides His face in hiddenness, people are often dismayed—a typical reaction.
Once we learn and understand God’s seasons of hiddenness and manifestation however, we will no longer be alarmed when He “hides His face”.
David’s best response is in Psalm 13:1–3 where he finally seems to understand what’s going on: How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death. (Psalm 13:1–3)
Here David is finally beginning to track with God and he’s praying for enlightenment in a time of hiddenness. This is what the issue is really all about. Don’t assume anything—wait to hear from God.
Isaiah had a great understanding of the process of hiddenness as prophets usually do. In Isaiah chapter 8 he says, “And I will wait on the Lord, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him.” (Isaiah 8:17)
And again in chapter 45 he writes: “Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!” (Isaiah 45:15)
THE JOY OF HIDDENNESS
I believe that hiddenness is one of the most exciting disciplines that we can learn in the realm of the Spirit. When you learn how to access it and live in it, suddenly everything makes sense forever. Everything falls to you. All the things which come against you only enable you to go deeper into God, because you have learned the discipline of living in His presence.
A man involved in hiddenness, looking for meaning, is a delight to the Lord. Isaiah understood God’s ways and all his attention was upon God and what He would do.
Therefore, understanding hiddenness and manifestation will train us how to determine the “windows of the soul”— those moments when we perceive what is happening in the spiritual realm.
I believe that there is a wealth of revelation and understanding that God wants to pour into your spirit.
Sometimes we become so weary of struggling through the Christian life because we don’t know how to replenish ourselves in the Spirit.
The discipline of hiddenness will enable you to recover, restore your soul, renew your mind, and refresh your spirit.
For me, coming into that place of hiddenness has been one of my greatest joys and blessings, and one of the reasons why, to a degree, I’ve perfected the art of bouncing back in life.
I know that I can defeat the devil just by ignoring him, by retreating into my spirit and just doing business with God. Living in that place where God wants us to be, no matter what the enemy throws at us, will only make us stronger.
We come out of our hidden place with greater revelation than we had when we entered it. It is the key to the place of power and significance in the Spirit.
A PRAYER FOR WISDOM AND FAITH
Father, I thank You that I am the apple of Your eye. I know that You seek to hide me in the secret place of Your presence. Teach me how to abide in You, To dwell and remain in Christ, Hidden away in Your heart, Safe from the hands of the enemy.
Help me to understand the wisdom of hiddenness, To perceive the revelation of Your presence by wisdom and faith.
When my soul cries out for Your manifest presence, May it hear the soothing words of the inner man of the Spirit, Saying, “Peace! Be at rest. God is here.”
Raise up my inner man so that my soul surrenders to childlike trust, not emotion. Teach me to see You by faith, So that the reality of Your continuous presence remains with me at all times. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Father, I am so grateful to You For the revelation of hiddenness. Thank You that the increase of wisdom and faith Is enabling me to behold You at all times.
Thank You that You never leave me, nor forsake me. I worship Your kindness and goodness to me. I see Your hand upon my life at this time. Thank You for the power and purpose of Your Holy Spirit. He will lead me into the full expression Of Your truth in hiddenness.
Thank You Father that by Your grace I will learn this spiritual discipline. As I grow in Your wisdom, I will change internally To become like You. I will never again be at the mercy of external things or influences. Instead my inner man of the spirit will be able to access You At all times and through all circumstances.
Thank You for teaching me this wonderful lesson. Thank You for showing me another dimension of life in the Spirit. I bless Your Name. Amen. MEDITATION EXERCISE
The following exercise is provided as an aid to assist you in spending time with God in the hidden place. Make sure that you allow adequate time to be still before the Lord and quiet any distracting thoughts. Follow the instructions below and write down what you sense the Lord is saying to you.
PRAY QUIETLY FOR PEACE, STILLNESS AND REST.
SPEAK THE NAME OF JESUS SOFTLY UNTIL YOUR INTERNAL THOUGHTS ARE RELAXED.
WHAT IS THE LORD SAYING TO YOU? – INITIALLY WRITE DOWN ONLY KEY WORDS AND PHRASES.
NOW PUT THESE THOUGHTS INTO FULL SENTENCES.
ARRANGE THESE SENTENCES INTO A COHERENT ORDER AND WRITE YOURSELF A LETTER AS THOUGH IT WAS FROM GOD.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY TO THE LORD? – INITIALLY WRITE DOWN ONLY KEY WORDS AND PHRASES.
ARRANGE THESE SENTENCES INTO A COHERENT ORDER AND WRITE A LETTER TO THE LORD, EXPRESSING BOTH THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER.
WHAT IS IT THAT YOU ARE MORE FULLY ABLE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AS A RESULT OF THIS EXERCISE?
THINK OF A FRIEND WHO MAY BE STRUGGLING IN THEIR EXPERIENCE OF GOD.
WRITE ON A MESSAGE (NOT MORE THAN 500 WORDS) A SPECIFIC WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT WHICH INVOLVES A SCRIPTURE AND A CHILDLIKE EXPLANATION OF HIDDENNESS. SEND IT!
Think of three people around your life at this time, including:
A PERSON YOU DO NOT KNOW WELL.
A PERSON YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO RELATE TO.
A PERSON WITH WHOM YOU ARE VERY FAMILIAR, BUT WITH WHOM YOU NEED TO TAKE YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO A NEW DEPTH.
From a place of hiddenness, close to the heart of God, ask for wisdom to see each person the way that God sees them. According to Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
Write a message to each of them providing specific encouragement as you declare to them how the Lord sees them.