The Question

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Genesis 3.8-9 NIV

When my daughter was only four years old, she loved to play Hide-n-Seek. “Try and find me, Daddy.” She was not hard to locate. Her hiding spots were so obvious I concluded she wanted me to find her.

The Lord God knows all our best hiding spots. He created them. Adam and Eve could not hide from God. Neither can we. His question is purely rhetorical and posed for our benefit.

“Where are you?”

Clearly, He already knows where I am, but His question begs another: Do I know where I am? Have I “made a searching and fearless moral inventory”[1] of myself? Or, do I permit barely enough introspection and self-to-self-disclosure to gloss over deeper issues of significance? Is my usual moral inventory “searching and fearless” or surface and tentative? Do I actually think I can hide from God? Or, have I only become adept at hiding from myself?

Upon rising from bed earlier today, I heard “the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden [of my heart] in the [morning] cool of [my new] day.” He expects me to answer a simple and important question.

“Where are you?”

Contributor: Dave S. (adapted from World Traveler blog)

[1] Step # 4 of “The Twelve Steps” in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous founded in 1935 by “Bill W.” and “Dr. Bob” in Akron, Ohio and recorded in the “Big Book” of A.A.