Where Are You? 🔍👀

It's a story we all know well.

God creates man.  God gives man instructions.  The devil slides into man's DMs.

Man starts to engage with the devil and his point-of-view.

Man gets twisted and abandons God's instructions.

Man comes face-to-face with God's judgement.

It could have been at Sunday School that you first heard the story, maybe at regular school... or perhaps even as an adult.  Regardless of where you were first introduced to this monumental turning point of human history, it is likely that the truth of it would have irrevocably impacted your perspective of where we are in this sojourn through the annals of time and more so your own place in it.

Hit with such a revelation you may be tempted to take a step or 2 back to contemplate the fact that the history of the world has been continuous ever since God said "Let there be light." ...and the fact that so many things have come and passed, until we get to where we are now in the present.

Realizing that, regardless of whether or not you chose the point in time that you get to leave your mark... you are here now and you will leave your mark.  The question then is: "What will your mark be?"

To answer that question, however, we must first skip over to a familiar question that God also asked of man in that Genesis story: "Where are you?"

At a glance, the question seems pretty straightforward, since man had sinned and was now actively hiding from God in the garden... but a deeper reflection will affirm that God is omniscient and sees all things, therefore, He knew exactly where Adam and Eve were located.

This then throws a new light on this familiar question.  Could it be that God's question was not an enquiry of the physical, but of the spiritual?

Could it be that God, knowing where in the garden His creation was hiding themselves, had come for their usual time of fellowship with Him and decided to confront the withdrawal of that fellowship?

The question is a penetrating one and can... and SHOULD be one that we all periodically execute for self-evaluation, even if just to see where we factor into this story of life that God is still actively writing.

Do you feel yourself pulling away from time spent with God?  Are you perhaps ignoring some truths and some convictions that God has been sending your way and rather than deal with them or confront them head-on, you've decided to tuck your heart away, somewhere sheltered from exposure to or communion with God?

If so be the case, only you would ever really know.  Ignoring these could mean missing the mark that you would want to stamp on the trails of this world.

The bright side however is that there is a path back to righteousness, holiness, purpose and restored relationship with God... but it all begins with that one question.  Will you take time to ask it: Where Are You?