When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, their sensory perception overpowered their spiritual sense. Their frame of reference for discerning right from wrong suddenly turned inward and personal rather than God-ward and eternal. With their eyes wide open, they were suddenly blinded by a vicious punch. They never saw it coming. They’d been set up. With one wrong choice and with one false move they walked right into the knockout punch and crumpled from fusion into confusion.
Like a one-legged soldier, Adam knew instinctively that something inside him was missing, that a vital part of his being had been ripped away from him. He had never realized the value of his identity until it was stolen. He and his bride had never known they were naked until they had been shed of their dignity.
Then God came into the Garden asking some serious questions, and Adam and Eve tried to hide in plain sight. Hiding from God is always more obvious than we think.
“Where are you?” God shouted. He wasn’t asking Adam where he was hiding, but where he was in relation to Himself. With His own voice, God gave Adam an audible reference point for realizing his “lost-ness.” It’s the kind of question you ask of someone who is dazed or confused: “Do you know where you are? Do you know your name? Do you know what day it is?”
It’s also the kind of question my hardworking, widowed mother used to ask me with fearful, pleading eyes when I defiantly made life harder for her than she needed. It was a love-question, but it was also a question that a confused teenage boy couldn’t answer.
