Where are you? Volume# 21 Issue # 3 Date: May 2025

I am currently in Canada on home assignment. It brings me great joy to reconnect with friends and family that I have not seen in several years. But this can also lead to heavy conversations as everyone has faced their own challenges while I have been away. Hearing highs and lows from them can feel like an emotional roller coaster as I try to get caught up. Often, I find myself asking clarifying questions to better understand what my loved ones have been facing, and to support renewal of friendship and fellowship. Recently, when I sat down with the member care team from my organization, they were asking some similar questions to assist me in debriefing my last term. As we went through the questions, I was reminded of the question that God asked in Genesis 3:9. He asked Adam, “Where are you”? This does not indicate that the all-knowing God had somehow lost track of the only two people he had created and was not able to see them hiding behind the bush. He was asking for their sake. God’s question was asked to bridge the gap that had formed between him and Adam because of Adam’s sin. It was a way of inviting Adam to come back into fellowship with God, for Adam to examine his own situation and heart, to be honest and transparent in acknowledging his condition before God. What an amazing thing for me to remember as I reflect both on my own past season and that of my friends. God is still asking each one of us “Where are you?” and inviting us into a renewed closeness.