Wheres Wally

Someone asked me yesterday, "How come in times of trial or testing God Hides". I was drawn back a few months and had to agree with this statement then I remembered a book we had got our kids when they where small that Jill and I got more fun out of than them, It was called Wheres Wally. Wally was a geeky guy who wore a striped shirt, big glasses and a goofy hat. He was created by a man called Martin Handford as an afterthought but kids and adults alike fell in love with him and over 40 million copies sold in 28 countries. Handford assured us that Wally was on every page but hidden to untrained eye, your job was to search for him. It's like "Surely Wally is in this place and I knew it not" sort of thing. When you found him it was a cry of victory that you found him first and you had this feeling of accomplishment. If it was a really difficult one, the greater that sense of awe, it was like the more difficult it was it increased the sense of discernment because of the patience and concentration it took to find him. Part of what made Wally so hard to find was in the book he is quite ordinary looking but as the book went on it got harder until the last page was full of mock Wally's and you had to find the real one amidst all these imposters. What happened there was that you could be looking at him and not even know it.
Forgive me for comparing finding God to Where's Wally (I'm sure I'll get a letter about this) but there are so many comparisons. Why dosn't God show Himself plainly in troubled times? Why does He hide His face? He may not be absent but He sure is elusive.
Can I suggest that every day of our lives is like another page of the book and our job is the pursuit of the Master, somedays He's easier to find than others but He is definintly there. Somedays easy found, next day not, Brother Lawrence wrote "God has various ways of drawing us to Him, but sometimes He hides Himself".
It's not that profound folks but let me introduce you to the WHERE'S WALLY method of finding God.