Where Are You? Series

A favorite game my boys used to play was hide-and-seek.

They thought they were experts at it—but they usually hid in plain sight.

One would crouch behind a curtain, little feet sticking out at the bottom.

Another would dive under a blanket that looked suspiciously like a small, wiggling mountain.

I’d walk around the room saying, “Now where could they be? I just can’t find them anywhere.”

And from under the blanket I’d hear a muffled giggle.

Of course, I could see them the whole time.

But that wasn’t the point of the game.

The joy of hide-and-seek isn’t staying hidden—it’s being found.

It’s the moment when the laughter breaks out and they leap into your arms shouting, “Here I am!”

And I sometimes think that’s how God feels about us.

From the very beginning, we’ve been hiding in plain sight—different places, different excuses, same fear.

And still He walks into the garden, into our lives, into our world, and asks the same question He asked in the very first story of Scripture:

> “Where are you?” — Genesis 3:9

That’s the question that never goes away.

It’s the first recorded words of God to a fallen humanity.

And after seventy-one years of life, I’m convinced it’s still the most personal question any of us will ever hear.

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The Question That Never Goes Away

When you reach my age, you realize questions shape us more than answers.

Some questions fade: What will I be when I grow up? How much will I earn? But a few echo forever.

God’s first question wasn’t about knowledge or power—it was about presence.

Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, heard the rustle of God in the garden, and hid.

And the Lord called out, not because He didn’t know where they were, but because they didn’t.

That question has crossed millennia.

It drifts through dorm rooms and boardrooms, through cities glowing with screens.

It still asks every heart: Where are you?

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The Lost Geography of the Soul

We can locate almost anything—except ourselves.

Our phones can find a satellite, but not our center.

Students can map DNA or program artificial intelligence, yet still wake at 3 a.m. wondering, Who am I?

Each new discovery gives us more control but less clarity.

We light new fires—in labs, on screens, inside our ambitions—and they illuminate and blind at once.

God’s question is still diagnostic: we’re lost, not in space but in spirit.

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The Garden We Left Behind

I imagine the silence of that first evening in Eden.

The first couple hiding among leaves they’d sewn in panic,

the air thick with guilt,

and then that voice breaking the stillness: “Where are you?”

Their tragedy wasn’t breaking a rule but breaking a relationship.

They traded presence for pride.

Self-aware, God-absent—that’s the human condition still.

Brilliant minds; anxious hearts.

Connected online; disconnected inside.

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Modern Hiding Places

If Eden had fig leaves, we have notifications.

We hide in busyness, in causes, in cynicism, in religion.

Some say, “I’d believe if I had proof.” Others, “If I’m good enough, God will be pleased.”

Different leaves, same fear.

We hide behind productivity—pretending usefulness equals worth.

We hide in entertainment—scrolling away the ache.

And sometimes we hide right in church—singing, nodding, yet distant inside.

Technology doesn’t create our hiding; it only gives it better lighting.

But the voice still comes: “Where are you?”

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The Red Button Generation

I’ve watched the world go from rotary phones to quantum chips.

Each age holds its own fire.

Fire once meant warmth and danger.

The atom meant power and fear.

Now artificial intelligence carries both.

The person with his finger on the red button isn’t a saint—he’s just human.

We build wonders faster than we build wisdom.

We’re teaching machines to think,

but we still haven’t learned to love.

When God asks, “Where are you?”, maybe He’s asking,

“Where are you in relation to Me—the One whose image you bear?”

Because when creation loses touch with its Creator, progress turns into peril.

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Fire and Fear

Today we fear climate collapse, nuclear war, digital rebellion—and rightly so.

But beneath those fears lies a deeper one: that we’ll destroy ourselves, not by accident but by arrogance.

We applaud prophets who warn in scientific terms,

but call moral prophets fanatics when they warn about sin.

The message is the same: the world is breaking.

Only the vocabulary differs.

Yet God’s voice isn’t panic.

He doesn’t thunder condemnation; He whispers invitation: “Where are you?”

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The God Who Comes Looking

What moves me most is that God came walking.

Not storming, walking.

That’s grace on sandaled feet.

He knew exactly what they’d done—and still came searching.

That’s who He is: the God who looks for people hiding in their shame.

And He still does.