Questions

By Cheri Cowell –

In the 1940’s, a popular parlor game became a wildly successful radio quiz program. If you’ve ever played 20 Questions, you know how much fun this word game can be. The “questioners” ask the “answerer” yes or no questions with the goal of discerning the subject the answerer has in mind. Although a fun game to play, asking questions is serious business; so serious, in fact, that it is one of the primary tools God uses in communicating with us. From the beginning, God set about asking questions, not because He needed answers, but because we need to ponder our answers.

Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, and were hiding from God in the garden. They’d clothed themselves in fig leaves, and were hiding in the bushes. God had walked with them in this garden and now they hid from Him there. But God knew where they were and what they’d done. He wasn’t asking because He needed to know, He was asking because they needed to own up to their sin. God is asking of you and me the same question so we might own up to the real state of our own souls. What fig leaves are you hiding behind? What bushes are you using to shield your true heart from the searching eyes of God? God isn’t asking the question because He doesn’t know; God is asking the question so we will ponder the answer.

“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3: 8-9 NIV).

PRAYER: God, I hear your searching question. I invite You to remove the fig leaves and lift the branches from my hiding place. Help me to answer honestly the question You are asking so I might be honest about my own need for Your saving grace.