Questions. Where are you?

For the most part Christians approach the Bible with all their questions. We come to God with all the things we want to figure out. We have questions about God, about the world, about science, about our future. We come to God and the Bible with loads of questions, but have you ever stopped and considered that instead of the Bible being a place we come to get our questions answered, the Bible is really the only book with the ability to ask you questions. We come to the Bible with questions, but if we are honest with ourselves the Bible and the Spirit have this ability to look into who we really are and ask us the questions.

For the next couple of weeks I'll be blogging as part of a series entitled Questions. I'll be looking at the places in Scripture where God asks us questions. This is part one.

In Genesis 3 God asks two very poignant questions. The first is: Where are you? The second: Who told you that you were naked? And God is still asking us those two questions today, they may sound different but essentially they're the same. It blows my mind how deeply God longs to be in relationship with us, he absolutely knows where we are... but he asks anyway. The first question may seem simple but it's pretty profound. Ever since the first mistake humans have had a natural inclination to run or hide from God as a response to their sin, and what God is really saying here is: Why are you hiding from me? Maybe we really don't understand the love of God, that our sin doesn't cause him to love us any less, and really whether we want to acknowledge it or not HE'S STILL THERE. Poor Adam really thought he could hide, but so do we. How hard is it to pray right after you've sinned, or fell to that temptation that gets you every time. The presence of God is there when you fall and even if you don't want to acknowledge it... He's there. So next time you come from your girlfriend's house after going "farther" than you both said you should, He's asking... Where are you? Next time you check that pornography site. Where are you? Next time you gossip. Where are you? In your attempts to ignore God because you're in a bad mood. Where are you? He's asking you constantly because he wants us to trust his love enough that we can run to Him at all times. So many times non-believers say things like, "I'm going to get my life together then I'll do the GOD thing." But Christians say the same thing in our subtle language. "God will love me more once I change some things about myself".

So many times when we screw up we hear: "Get away", "I'm disappointed in you", "You should feel ashamed!" When really He's asking, "Where are you, come here so I can fix it, I miss you, I love you, you don't have to be ashamed, I forgive you."

Where are you? He's not asking because you've finally fixed enough things in your life or stopped sinning. He asks out of a genuine concern for why we run away from him or hide from him when we fall. "Where are you," is the cry of a father looking for his son in a crowded mall. He's upset his son ran off, but he's a lot more delighted to see his son when he finally finds him.

People only want to know where you are if they miss you. Is God asking where you're at? Maybe he misses you, stop hiding... He can see you silly

Next Wednesday: "Who told you that you were naked?"