Who Am I and Who Are You?

 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" Genesis 3:8-9

Where are you? It's the simple question God asked Adam in Genesis 3:9, soon after he and Eve had wrongfully eaten from the tree in the middle of the garden—the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam, knowing he had sinned against God, was hoping to get away with it by hiding from God. He then blamed Eve for giving him the fruit. The old sin, shame, and then blame someone else game.  I often wonder, what would have happened if he would have been honest in the very beginning. Honest with God, honest with himself, and honest with Eve. We can't picture it, because the world we live in is the result of those sins. We can only try to imagine what could have been. 

What would have happened if Adam would have said, "Nope. Not gonna eat that. Not on my fig watch, cutie." Before I get in trouble for not holding Eve accountable, I will just assert that the question "Where are you?" was directed to Adam, and that's where I am focusing, for the most part. I am well aware that it was Eve who was first approached by the serpent. Genesis 3: 4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." She heard God's instructions, but was tempted by having more, as many of us are still today. As a married couple, God gave them responsibilities first as individual people, and then oneness as a united couple. Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Not only are they accountable for their own individual sins, but they were to help each other stay out of trouble. In this instance, it went sideways fast. I've said before that I am no theologian, but it seems to me that they didn't protect each other here. When we don't heed blatant warnings, we will suffer the consequences. We often take people with us—people we love and people we don't even know. Our sin rarely just affects us personally. Satan easily made the sin so attractive to Eve, and the instruction God gave her went as easily out the garden gate. It's these types of diversions that we still face today, and if we're not careful, we can start justifying them and hiding them just like Adam. For direction, wisdom, and important decisions, seek out the Lord's help, because we see early in creation how cunning and crafty Satan is. Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. 

My intention was to write about the topic of staying true to yourself, but instead, the question of "who are you?" came to my mind. I think God asking Adam "where are you" is along those same lines. God knows everything, so of course He already knew Adam was hiding from his sin. In essence, He was asking, Who are you, Adam, and what are you doing? What are you doing with the life I gave you? Are you going to mess up everything I just gave you for one delicious bite of a stupid fruit I told you not to even mess around with in the first place? These are good questions to ask ourselves as well. Where am I, and what am I doing? Who am I following? Can I confidently say, "Here I am, Lord. Here is what I'm doing. With the talents and resources you gave me. With the upbringing you placed me in. With the body you provided me. With the people you placed around me. With all the blessings and the challenges you have walked me through. HERE I AM, Lord." If not, what am I  saying? How easily can I be diverted when the right decisions are right in front of me? Well, sin is easy, that is true, but I'm not tackling that huge topic today.

This big question definitely has something to do with being "true to ourselves," but being true to who we are has everything to do with who God designed us to be. Who we are truly is who we were destined to be when God created our being. Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." We were known, set apart, and appointed as prophets. That's pretty cool. Great, but what does it mean to be true and honest with who and where we are? Being true to oneself and knowing who we are starts with an actual personal relationship with our Creator.  It's not only knowing Who created us, but knowing His character too. Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  We were created in the image of God. As a non-theologian, I can only simply surmise that we were made by love, to love, because of great love. 

What happens as we travel throughout life is we take on a lot of garbage and lose sight of that great love along the way. Some of that garbage is the result of Adam and Eve's choice in the garden. Sometimes we do what Adam did. We start blaming someone else for our lame mistakes. How we were raised, we weren't given enough, we had to pay our own way, we struggled, didn't get to go here or there, didn't have what our friends and neighbors had, stress made us eat too much, drink too much, do this or that, and on and on the excuses go for why someone should see why we need a break or shouldn't have to work as hard to get to where that "god" is, whatever it may be in that person's life.  I know that didn't sound very compassionate, but when we start blaming everyone else for why we don't have something or feel we deserve something better for doing nothing, it is really a root of being ungrateful for what we've already been given. It's like Satan doesn't even need to do his dirty work because we're already sitting around being lazy, ungrateful swine. It's like we are born with our eyes focused on God, but as we grow and fall in love with the world, our eyes turn away, much like Adam and Eve's did in the garden. 

I thought about what Eve must have been thinking as she stood there in this absolutely perfect garden that God had provided for her and her new love, and still she wanted something MORE. Adam enabled her by going along with the quest for MORE when he agreed to eat the fruit too! What if they had both been grateful for what they already had? What if they had looked around and said, "What a gorgeous place! And if God has blessed us with this, we must take care of it!" They had healthy bodies, fresh water and food, and a place to live with no shame. How many people do you know who already seem to have enough, but just seem to want more, more, and more? Or what they had was already good, but they keep throwing it away to get something even "better"? Are we those people too? It's a gratitude deficiency. When we become more aware of God's hand and His will and purpose over our lives, it will become even harder to lust for everything, wallow in self-pity, or place blame on others when we are unhappy, because we TRUST in Him to work everything out for our good. Romans 8:28-29 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. It's not necessary to have all the things and place unnecessary blame when we are trusting God for whatever the outcome may be.  The fact that we are just as predestined, called, and foreknown as Adam and Eve, should tell us that we are loved and have a purpose much higher than we can even comprehend. Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. 

The key to being true to ourselves is being grateful. At the heart of gratitude is humility, and being humbled prepares us for the kind of service God will use us for. When we know God better, we will get a sense when we are not being true to the person we are called to be. Elijah heard it as a still small voice, 1Kings 19:12-13 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" God wants us to be genuine and He will speak to our hearts if we are listening for His voice. 

Who are you today? You are a child of the One True King. That I know for sure.