Hey, hey! I am Sarah Bowling, thank you for watching God Today. Hey – I wanted to have a conversation with you about talking with God. And God talking with you. Do you realize that the very first conversation that ever happened – a conversation with God that ever happened in the Bible…was between God and Adam?
And I really want to speak to this with you because this happened, we read the documentation of it, this was after Adam totally messed up.
Now, before that, God had told Adam some commands. Look after the garden, name the animals – so those are commands. Those are imperatives, not necessarily dialogue back and forth. When we think of a conversation, we think back and forth. Questions, and answers, and thoughts. Interactive. But with God’s conversation with Adam, this was right after Adam totally blew it. Remember, God said, “Don’t eat the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” And he did it. He screwed up. It wasn’t kind of like,” Oops, I dropped something I shouldn’t have.” This was a major screw-up, I mean seriously. Of the one thing God told him not to do, he blew it. And he messed up.
I think you and I might be able to relate to that a little bit. Maybe you have messed up some? I know I have. Some of it is little stuff. But some of it is a pretty big issue. You think, “Ugh. Man.” I want to speak about that with you. Because a lot of times when we blow it, we mess up, we don’t really want to talk with God. We hide. And that is exactly what Adam did. He hid. He knew he screwed up. And he hid himself. He and Eve – they hid. Because they didn’t want to talk with God. And God, I love what God does. God is walking in the Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day. And this is what God says, “Adam, where are you? Where are you?” The point of this is that God speaks to you at the point of your greatest disaster, your greatest mess-up. God is not shaming you, condemning you, saying, “Hey, you are a screw-up, you are out of here.”
God doesn’t repel you, doesn’t ostracize you, doesn’t push you away. He doesn’t do any of that stuff. God is looking for you and you don’t need to hide from God. God is looking because God’s heart for you is love, compassion, and to reconcile, redeem, and reconnect you with His heart.
So, God says to Adam, “Where are you?” And Adam says, “I was hiding. I was hiding.” How do we hide in the modern world? We hide in a lot of things. We hide in entertainment. We hide – it can be Netflix, you can be a gamer, we hide in our entertainment, we hide in our hobbies, we hid in our work, our achievements. We hide. Some of us even hide in trying to do all the Christian stuff. All the good works, you know? Trying to overcompensate for our shortfalls and our failures, the place where we messed up.
All that stuff is kind of smoke and mirrors because God just wants you. Even if you’ve messed up. I want to say this to you. You might know people that have messed up. Nobody is beyond the redeeming love of God. Nobody. The only person who does that is the one who separates himself, stays hidden, and continues to disconnect. But God still says, “Where are you? Where are you?” And Adam says, “Here. I messed up. The woman you gave me…” He blames the woman. Fantastic. She blames the snake. I don’t know, where is all the personal responsibility? That’s a different issue, that’s a different episode. But all of this is to say to you that God wants a conversation with you. God wants to step into that place of failure where you’ve messed up. That place where, “Man, I didn’t measure up. I fell short of what God asked me to do. I knew God’s command and I broke that command. I messed up.” And God doesn’t say, “Oh, it’s over. All bets are off. You blew it. Three strikes and you’re out.” No. God says, “I want to know where you are because I want to have a relationship with you. I want to reconcile you and all of the difficulties and the hardships and failures. I am after your heart.” Because God is after you, God loves you.
I encourage you today. Take some time and have some conversation with God. Some honest dialogue. “Yup, I totally screwed up. Yup, I messed up here. I didn’t follow the rules here. And God, please help me. Please forgive me. I am sorry. Help me to do better. Help me not to walk away, help me not to isolate myself or punish myself. Help me to walk in your love, in your redemption, reconciled with you.”
Thanks again for watching, totally great to hang out with you in God Today. I am Sarah Bowling, thanks for your time.