I knew all the best hiding places on our family farm. If my father found me, he would put me to work doing chores that often demanded more physical and mental endurance than I had as a young boy. It should have been a positive experience working side-by-side with my father. But it wasn't. I felt like an absolute failure when I didn't live up to the daily expectations I felt he had of me.

Hiding was my escape and my place to find rest and solace. Even today, I treasure time alone and away from the demands of work and parenthood. Time alone is when I think most about God.

Thinking about God during my growing up years brought another problem. I assumed God, like my dad, had expectations of me that I could not meet. I began to feel like God was watching my every move and was angry when I made wrong choices. And there was nowhere I could hide from him.

In high school I heard a friend talk about God like he knew him personally and he was joyful.  "He knows something that I don't," I remember thinking, "and I need to find out what it is." I began to question my friend and discovered something that astonished me.

I learned that God indeed has expectations of me. He expects me to perfectly follow his standards which, of course, I cannot do. This separated me from God and the ability to know and enjoy him.

But God himself dealt with my shortcomings through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus did something 2,000 years ago that dealt once and for all with the consequence of my faults to bridge the separation that existed between God and me. Now I know that God forgives me and totally accepts me just the way I am through Jesus Christ. I still have plenty of faults. I still make wrong choices all too often, but God is not angry with me because of what Jesus has done for me.

I came out of hiding. God gave me a love for my father that I had never had before. I still struggled with feelings of failure as I worked by his side, but I was at peace and could even experience joy because my heavenly Father reminded me each day that he accepts me and loves me through Jesus Christ.