Where are you?

Genesis 3:9…”Where are you?”

This question used to bother me. I mean, God knew where Adam was, right?…He’s God. However, now I realize my mistake. I was thinking God wanted to know Adam’s physical location. He wanted Adam to evaluate his spiritual location. See, for the first time, Adam was disobedient to God. For the first time, God came to visit and Adam wasn’t eagerly waiting for Him. As soon as he disobeyed, sin separated him from God. For the first time, instead of hanging with God, Adam was hiding from God. He went from fellowshipping with God, to wanting nothing to do with God.

I guess because my name is Adam, I think about this question often. I especially think about it when God feels far away from me. He sometimes asks “Where are you, Adam?” In my mind, He continues, “You used to be right here with me. You used to want to spend time with me. You used to couldn’t wait to get up and pray to me. Your heart used to fill up so quickly with my presence when you listened to sermons, went to church, and listened to praise and worship music. I had your heart at one time, Adam…where are you?”

Typing those words, it makes me hate sin. It makes me hate sin because it’s usually something totally meaningless that grips my heart. I start practicing a bunch of secular music on the guitar instead of playing and singing praises to Him. I start reading books just for entertainment and put the Bible and other books that help me learn more about Him on hold. I get busy. I basically go a day without Him, then a day turns into days, and days turn into weeks. All of a sudden, I find that I haven’t felt Him in a while. Sooner or later, I hear the words…“Where are you, Adam?”

I think it’s interesting that when you read the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5 that the words “for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” appear. I think it is interesting because in Galatians 5, jealousy is listed as an act of the sinful nature. Why does He get to be jealous, and we don’t? Well, that’s kind of obvious, we get jealous out of envy and it leads to discord, fits of rage…etc. I think a perfect picture of the wrong kind of jealousy is Cain and Abel. God flat out told Cain if he’d just do what was right, just like Abel did, that he would be accepted as well. Instead of doing the work and developing his own relationship with God, Cain let sin “have him.” Now, instead of reading a story of how to turn your heart towards God, we read a story of jealousy and murder.

I remember back in the school days that three girls absolutely crushed me. I mean, these girls put my heart in a blender and hit “puree.“ Ohhh, probably not that bad, but I really, really liked these girls. One girl in middle school hurt me really bad. I remember that she didn’t even tell me that it was over. I had to watch her walk to lunch holding hands with another dude. I thought everything was cool between us. In just an instant, I was history. As sad as that is, it gets more pathetic…I let her do this to me TWO more times! After the third time…she was OUT, and I was never going back! However, I would see her with these other guys and wonder why I wasn‘t good enough. I was jealous. Not the “I’m going to kill somebody” jealous, just the hurt kind of jealous.

So, why do I tell that depressing bit of information to thousands of people? Because, I believe that’s the kind of jealousy God feels. I used to just wish that those girls would get their hearts crushed just like I did, you know…what comes around goes around? But now, I totally forgive them in my heart. I have to because I’ve done God that way so many times. Thank God He didn’t say “three strikes and you’re out.” I would have been “out” a long time ago. He is so patient, and so kind. All He wants is to spend time with you. He wants you to put Him first. When He has first place in my life, I can’t tell you how great life is. Even when the crappiest stuff happens to me, I have such joy in my heart. When I put anything else in first place, I lose twice. I lose in the fact that life just stinks. Then, I lose in the fact that my God feels like I did when I saw that my middle school girlfriend’s heart didn’t belong to me anymore.

Just the other day, I said to my little man “hey, come give Daddy a hug!” He said “I go play computer!” Immediately, this entire WMD filled my mind. Imagine how God must have felt when Adam took that bite of that fruit.

Where are you?

Later

Adam