A Prayer When You Want to Hide From God

We’ve had some extra rooms added to our house, two bedrooms above a garage. The house suddenly seems so much bigger. My husband is using one of the bedrooms as an office. Sometimes, when he’s taking a break, he comes to look for me. Unknown to me he’s searching for a few minutes before he can find me. “There you are!” He exclaims. “I didn’t know where you were.” Then we both laugh.

God’s first question to humanity was something similar, except sadly it wasn’t something to laugh about.

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).

God’s question came following a series of wonderful, encouraging instructions and promises that he had given Adam and Eve – “Be fruitful…” “I give you…” “You are free…”

And then came the first of what would be a number of tough questions.

“Where are you?”

Even though this is a hard question, you and I have the chance to understand it in hindsight, and discover a wonderful opportunity for us, if God were to ask us the same question.

God didn’t call out to Adam in the same way that my husband does. It wasn’t because God didn’t know Adam’s whereabouts. God knows all things. 

Instead, God’s question seems to have been an invitation to Adam to explain himself. 

“Why are you hiding?” God could have said. “Why are you not here to meet me?”

We’re not told whether Adam usually came to meet God as he walked in the garden in the cool of the day, but that’s the impression we get. Adam freely and easily conversed with God and yet now he felt unable to do so.

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 (Genesis 3:8).

Adam hid out of fear. Suddenly everything had changed when they disobeyed God. They experienced fear, shame, guilt and a desire to shift the blame from themselves to others.

I wonder if things would have been different had Adam been there waiting for God when he came to walk in the garden in the evening, ready to talk to him, to own up. We don’t know. 

But we do know for ourselves that when God asks “where are you?” We can respond differently from Adam.

We don’t have to hide. We can instead be like the Psalmist who said:

My sins, O God, are not hidden from you; you know how foolish I have been (Psalm 69:5).

And also respond with:

But as for me, I will pray to you, Lord; answer me, God, at a time you choose. Answer me because of your great love, because you keep your promise to save. (Psalm 69:13 GNT).

We don’t have to experience shame because we are assured:

No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame, Psalm 25:3

We don’t have to feel guilty because: 

Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22 NLT

We can come with confidence to God. We can expect our shame and guilt to be removed.

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:16 NLT

We are indeed favored. 

Pray