“Where Are You?”

Can you believe Adam used to walk through the garden with God every day? No guilt, no shame, no sin, just him and God enjoying each other’s company. They had a time and place where they met in the cool of the day and here God is to meet him, but there’s no Adam... on the far side of the garden there’s Adam, hiding in the brush after having dinner with a snake. He’s scared to death because he remembers the words “in the day that you eat of that tree you will surely die.” Can you imagine being Adam in that moment and hearing God’s voice echo through the garden, “Adam, where are you?”.

The fear, the guilt, and the shame were all new feelings for him! The voice that he once ran to, he is now running away from. He did what most of us do now when we disobey God, he hid. I believe God still asks that same question to you and I at different times in our relationship. “Where are you?”. We all have seasons where we listen to the devil’s lies, make stupid decisions, and end up hiding from Him in our sin ... too ashamed to face Him. Or, maybe you hide out of fear because you see God as an angry judge with the rod in hand waiting for the opportunity to punish you. That is the furthest thing from the truth! Were there consequences for Adam’s sin? Yes, just as He said there would be. But is that why God was looking for Adam? No! He was coming to reconcile. Wherever you are in your relationship with Jesus, you need to know that His desire is to reconcile with you. Grace is a hard thing to understand, and even harder to accept. Yet without it, we are hopelessly hiding. There is no sin, no situation, no bad decision that He won’t forgive. His heart is to have a close relationship with you. Don’t let sin steal that from you. I pray that you don’t waste any more time not walking with Him. He wants to reconcile with you, and your desire is to be close with Him... so remove what stands between that relationship!

(Genesis 3)