Good morning…
Seeing through the shadows of our pointy porcupine of self-protection, God continues our conversation.
The Lord called out to the man and asked, “Where are you?”
The man answered, “I was naked, and when I heard you walking through the garden, I was frightened and hid!”
“How did you know you were naked?” God asked. “Did you eat any fruit from that tree in the middle of the garden?”
“It was the woman you put here with me,” the man said. “She gave me some of the fruit, and I ate it.”
The Lord God then asked the woman, “What have you done?”
“The snake tricked me,” she answered. “And I ate some of that fruit” (Genesis 3:9-13, CEV).
Seeking to cover our naked vulnerability, out of fear we hide and we close our eyes. We blame. We blame more. Disconnected from God’s desires, we feel tricked into eating deadly fruit.
But what does the God of our universe do? The LORD does not launch into a litany of lessons, a long-winded lecture, an annoyed “I told you so.” Our Creator calmly continues our conversation, asking a series of soul-searching questions. “Where are you?” “How did you know you were naked?” “Did you eat any fruit from that tree in the middle of the garden?” “What have you done?”
In Latin, to “educate” literally means to train or to mold, to lead out or to draw from darkness into light. Wise teachers draws out the potential and the gifts of each student. Questions serve an important purpose: to train our inner truth to God’s way of thinking, to mold our mind to hold enduring wisdom, and to lead us out from beneath our load of layers. As a masterful draw-outer, God continues our intimate conversation with introspective questions to draw us out of the darkness of our self-made shame into the light of our LORD’s lavish love.
Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness (Isaiah 55:6-7, MSG).
…Sue…
P.S. To connect into this series of posts, please explore yesterday’s message, Our Crazy Cover-Up.
