Ben Fourie

But the LORD God called out to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9

Many explanations have been offered to reconcile the Biblical story of creation with the scientific information about the origin of the universe and man himself. We do not even know exactly when the Biblical story was written. The Jewish tradition has it that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible while other scholars think that Genesis was written in the time of Solomon. Another theory that sets forth the final version of Genesis as written as late as the Babylonian exile has won a lot of ground. The language used in Genesis, as well as other facts, has contributed to the popularity of this theory.

The research and theories are very interesting, but to me the core of the story is not about all the scientific information and theories but lies elsewhere. I believe that God created the universe and all else, but the how and when is not the most important part of the story. What really matters are three short words: “Where are you?”

Only three words, but in these three words one finds the entire message of the Bible. God keeps calling to us. Shortly after the Fall, man tried to hide from God for fear of what God would do when He found out about their eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. It would have been God’s prerogative to distance Him from man as he gave them absolute freedom and set only one boundary. The decision to overstep this boundary, and thereby putting themselves beyond the boundary of God’s paradise, was theirs alone. Nobody could have blamed God if He had decided to leave them to their fate, but He did exactly the opposite. He called to them.

In the following weeks, we are going to look at a few people from the Old Testament and how God used them in his kingdom.

Prayer: How can we ever thank you that you never leave us to our own fate, but keep calling us towards you every day. Amen