Hide and Seek

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

In the first few chapters of the Bible, we read how God spoke all of creation into being. He designed a man and a woman, breathed life into them and placed them in a garden paradise. He gave them good and meaningful work to do. And they were happy.

They had one rule to follow but they rebelled. Immediately, they felt shame. That’s where today’s passage picks up.

God comes to visit them and they hide. The results of our rebellion – our sin – is always a desire to hide. We hide from God. We hide from each other. We hide from ourselves. Sin always results in broken relationships.

Down the road, we’ll see how these broken relationships play out between the man and the woman (Adam and Eve). But today, we wanted to pause to reflect on how our broken relationship with God affects us.

When we hide from God, we hide ourselves from the one who loves us most and loves us best. We hide because we fear punishment for the bad things we’ve done or because we want to avoid accountability.

But all our hiding amounts to nothing. As the psalmist said of God “Where can I flee from your presence?” God always comes looking for us. He invites us to speak up from our hiding places, to answer the “Where are you?” question.

Where have you hidden from God in your life? Where are you hiding from God today? What would it look like for you to come out of hiding?

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