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 (NIV)
A few weeks ago I was at my daughter’s house cooking dinner. My grandson wanted to help. Now this kind of thing can be a bit tricky because I wanted him to help me but we also needed to be safe. So, I let him climb up on his step stool next to me to help me stir the pot on the stove.
I told him over and over again to not touch the pot because it was hot. I had a hold of one of the pot handles (and it wasn’t hot) and I had my other hand out in front of him to keep him from touching anything. But you guessed it. Inadvertently, he reached up and touched the other handle…..which was hot.
He quickly pulled his hand back and then had a reaction I didn’t expect. He stepped off the stool, ran up the stairs and hid in his room. Completely unsure of what was happening, I quickly followed. I found him hiding in his room and pulled him into my arms to hug him.
I am not sure what caused him to react like this. I don’t know if he was hurt, if he was embarrassed because he touched the pot when I told him not to or if he was afraid he’d get into trouble. But something struck me as I thought about this later. Don’t we do this with God?
We do something we know he doesn’t want us to do and we withdraw from our relationship with him. We get hurt or we’re embarrassed or we’re afraid we’ll get into trouble and we distance ourselves. We don’t pray, we don’t come to have our normal conversations. We disconnect.
And when we do, God has the same reaction I had with my grandson. He comes to find us. He runs after us and he pulls us into his arms whispering words of love and assurance. He tells us that no matter what we are loved and no matter how many times we reach for something we shouldn’t, he will be there to pick us up so we can try again.
That’s because he loves us. Not matter what we do, we are his kids and he will do anything to make sure we know it.