"Where are you?"

A dear friend gave me a new devotional for Christmas: SOLO, An Uncommon Devotional.  It’s unique….designed not necessarily to teach you to study the Bible “but rather to develop a conversation between you and God.”  Lectio divina: reading, thinking, praying and living scripture.

Each lesson takes time, which is likely why I’m only on the second lesson.  And maybe it’s going slower for me, because I’m drawing so much from my time.  What joy!  It’s been a long time since I was so expectant in my quiet place.

Lesson One took me to the 3rd chapter of Genesis.  The beginning of man.  Adam.  And Eve. The serpent deceived Eve, and Eve in turn drew Adam into the deception. Then, the Fall. 

And then the line that jumped off the page for me:  "God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And [Adam] said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid...…and I hid myself."

Now, I’m no theologian, but as far as I can tell, this is the first emotion attributed to man in scripture.  FEAR. 

In my previous post, the first one in many months, I confessed that worry had overwhelmed me lately.  And isn’t the root of worry really FEAR?  And so, what do we do?  Pull away.  Go silent.  Hide. 

Wow!  I’m not sure I have my mind around it yet.  But God is teaching me something here.  And I’m keen to hear him, to not miss whatever it is that he’s beginning to teach me.  

To be continued... :-)