Have you ever expected someone for a visit to your home only to have them call because they got lost on route? What would be your first question to them? Mine would be, “where are you?”

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were living in paradise, literally! The Garden of Eden was a beautiful, peaceful sanctuary where they could walk in communion with their Creator.

God’s mission for Adam and Eve was to fill the earth with people and make the earth one large, beautiful garden like Eden. But something happened and it all went terribly wrong.

You see, this plan depended on the intimate relationship between God and His people walking in the garden together. This relationship, like all relationships, needed to be built on trust and faithfulness. This trust started with Adam and Eve being obedient to God’s few and simple commands. But unfortunately Adam and Eve did exactly what God asked them not to do, and evil entered the world for the very first time.

God finds Adam and Eve hiding from their Creator among the bushes of the garden, and what did God do? God’s first response to sin was not condemnation or guilt or shame. God’s first response to Adam and Eve was a question (and btw, God doesn’t have to ask questions because God is God). God asked “Where are you?”

It was the voice of grace, the voice of mercy, and the voice of love. God’s grace toward them was just a foretaste of what was to come.

If we are truly honest, we’ve all been lost. We have all disobeyed and fallen away from God by our actions or words. We have all hidden because of guilt or shame.

Where are you?

You don’t need to hide anymore.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:16-17)

Rev. Mona's Blogs will resume in early September.