The God Who Comes Looking

What if the very first question in all of Scripture was not a challenge but an invitation? In Genesis 3, when God walks through the garden in the cool of the evening and calls out to Adam and Eve, the question is not an accusation. It is a reaching out. We explore what it means that God's first recorded question to humanity is simply, where are you? Not what have you done, not how could you, but where are you. And we find ourselves in that question too, because we hide just as Adam and Eve did. We cover ourselves with explanations, with defenses, with blame passed from one person to the next. The story shows us that the condemnation in the garden did not come from God. It came from the humans. God kept asking questions while we kept issuing verdicts. And when the leaves we stitched together were not enough, God made something more durable and sent them out clothed and ready. That pattern, of God seeking, God covering, God sending, is one that runs all the way through our faith story and right into our own lives today.