Keep Walking With God

There’s something about the verse in the book of Genesis that says God was walking in the garden that speaks to my soul.

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” – Genesis 3:8 ESV

This doesn’t just speak to my soul because it’s God walking in the garden, going to check on his children, whom he knew had just sinned against him. It says to my soul that this is what true intimacy with God looks like.

{ quick backstory recap} 😅

God commands Adam and Eve not to partake from the tree of knowledge of good and evil → Serpent goes to Eve, has a convo w/ her & convinces her God’s holding out on her → makes tree look more desirable than what it was → She eats the fruit & gives it to her husband→ their eyes are opened, and they now know good as well as evil, just as the serpent told them would happen →they hide themselves bc they know they’ve sinned & they now know what perverseness (nakedness) is.

But here’s the part that spoke to my soul. God didn’t just notice that they sinned and hid themselves from him. He knew because they were no longer walking with him. They left their place of intimacy with God.

Imagine how freely and openly they communed with God before the sin. Before they knew what shame was, because sin invited it into the storage room of their minds.

As long as they walked closely with God and they were in his presence, they didn’t even know sin existed. 

They had no shame to deal with. They had no embarrassment to deal with. They had no fear to deal with.

But the moment they no longer found themselves in the presence of God, walking with him, communing with him, and freely enjoying his presence, the enemy came in and seized the moment.

He used the bait of covetousness and desire to turn their hearts against God and cause them to sin against him. Once they sinned, their eyes were opened just as the serpent had told Eve. 

However, their eyes were opened to both the pure and impure things. Then they hid because they were afraid; they were ashamed, and they were experiencing a reality that God never meant for them to live.

But God’s love for them never changed, even though he knew what they had done. 

He still desired to be with them. He still cared for them deeply, and we know this because instead of killing them, he put a boundary between them and him, which was kicking them out of the Garden of Eden. But what he says next is what broke my heart and spoke to my soul so tenderly.

“Then the Lord called to the man, ' Where are you?”  - Gen 3:9

The intimacy that God once had with the man and his wife was now gone. As soon as they heard his footsteps in their garden, they hid themselves from him. 

They stopped meeting him and seeing him in the same way as they did before.

They no longer met him with joy, but they now met him with fear because they knew they had sinned and they deserved punishment. 

God knew that they now would no longer always be with him. But death was now a wedge between them. Not just a physical death or spiritual death, but also an intimate death.

Yet God still looked for them!

The dynamic of their relationship with God changed. But it didn’t have to. If only they hadn’t gone past the first boundary God gave. If only they had kept walking with him. If only they had kept meeting him.

Keep meeting God. 

Even if the serpent whispered to you & tricked you into eating the forbidden fruit God told you not to. Even if you just found yourself wandering away, being distracted by the appearance of something else. 

God still desires to meet with you, and he still desires to have a relationship with you. 

The Scriptures say in Romans 8:31, “nothing can separate us from the love of God” . 

Let Adam and Eve be your proof that what God’s word says is true.

Keep walking with God.