Focal Passage: Genesis 3:8
A nervous young man stood in the aisle of a church during a revival meeting in Brockton, MA, in response to an appeal by noted evangelist Dwight L. Moody. In a shaky voice, the young man admitted he didn’t fully understand the message that Moody just delivered, but he said, “I’m not quite sure, but I’m going to trust and obey.”
David Towner, the services music minister, sat on the platform, struck by the words of faith so innocently stated. He wrote down the words, sending them to a friend who served as a Presbyterian minister named John Sammis. Paired with a melody Towner wrote, the lyrics written by Sammis comprise the cherished tune we know as Trust and Obey.
The song begins:
“When we walk with the Lord in the light of his love…” and ends with a line that says, “When in fellowship sweet, we shall sit as his feet, or walk by his side on the way…”
I know I’ve talked about this idea of walking with the Lord in the past. It’s a rich phrase that repeats itself often enough in scripture that it’s worth exploring since it ought to be the goal of every believer.
There’s an interesting phrase in the account of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. As soon as they ate of the fruit on the tree that God forbade them to touch, they realized clearly their disobedience. Eyes opened and spiritually naked, they stitched together a few fig leaves to cover their shame.
Then, look at what scripture tells us.
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. (Genesis 3:8)
They “heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden.”
Scholars more versed in Hebrew than I say that the Hebrew phrase used in Genesis 3 suggests God was “walking, as was his custom.” In other words, before they allowed sin to enter the world, Adam and Eve regularly walked with God, sharing fellowship and relationship with him.
That’s why the sound they heard while they were sewing their fig leaves was so familiar to them. The knew the sound God made while walking through his creation. They heard it every time God came to walk with them.
That’s a fascinating take on this time of perfection, isn’t it? When all was right, before choice created chaos, God walked regularly with his children in perfect fellowship. So common was his presence, they recognized the sound he made as he stepped lightly on the grass and pushed aside the low branches of the trees in the garden.
Once perfection was marred by sin, Adam and Eve knew everything had changed. They were right…to a point.
When they heard God taking his customary walk in the garden and heard him call for them, they weren’t cowering in fear of a tiger jumping out of the underbrush. They weren’t hiding from an unknown monster. They were afraid the Lord God with whom they regularly walked in the cool of each day would find them exposed and guilty of disobeying his one command. As a result, they hid in the forest.
The Hebrew word for hid in this passage speaks of intention. They deliberately withdrew themselves, (literally in Hebrew) from the presence of the Lord.
That’s what makes all this so poignant. Let me see if I can take you where I’m going.
When God called out, “Where are you?,” he was not clueless and befuddled. He knew what they did and where they were. He wanted them to step out of hiding, come back into his presence and confront what happened. He needed them to acknowledge or confess what the sin they committed.
Here’s the thing I missed each time I read this verse in the past. Even knowing their sin and knowing they must face the consequences of that sin, God still came to walk with them. To connect again with them. To stay in relationship with them…even when they deliberately and purposefully withdrew from his presence.
Do you catch the irony here? The God they were hiding from is the same God who came looking for them. Yes, nature of God’s relationship with humanity changed, but not because he changed…because humanity changed.
Sin makes us hide from God; grace is God coming to look for us.
And, therein rests the good news of the gospel. God never declared his people a lost cause. Instead, God began a long, redemptive movement back to humanity. Culminating, as John says in the opening words of his gospel as he introduces Jesus to his readers:
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)
John uses a Greek word for dwelt in this sentence which can be literally translated as pitched his tent among us. Jesus came to live and walk with God’s creation.
The final picture isn’t humanity clawing its way back into Eden so much as God in Jesus coming to dwell among his people once again. When the redemptive work of Christ was finished, God sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of all believers, then and now, walking daily with each of us in fellowship, teaching and guiding our every step.
Perhaps that is what makes the idea of walking with God so profound. It’s not merely a metaphor for living a good life. It is a picture of what God created us for in the first place.
So perhaps the question isn’t simply, “Are you walking with God?” Maybe the deeper question is, “Are you still hiding?”
If you are hiding, the sound of God walking in your garden, as is his custom, is not a sound to dread or fear. It is a sound to celebrate. It is an invitation from a loving God who wants us to step out of the trees.
To come back in his presence.
To trust. To obey.
To walk with him again.
I find that…remarkable!
Thinking Points
What familiar “sound” of God’s presence am I ignoring — the gentle ways he invites me back into fellowship?
How does the picture of God walking “as was his custom” reshape my understanding of his desire for relationship with me?
In what ways do I experience the daily companionship of the Holy Spirit? How might I become more attentive to him?
What would trusting and obeying look like in the specific place where I am most prone to withdraw from the presence of God?
