I don’t know if like me you are inspired by the breaking of dawn if you are on a car journey as day breaks. I always think that there’s a special sort of quietness just as the day is breaking. The birds fall silent and it seems like the whole earth is holding its breath – then slowly the sun rises on the horizon and joy breaks out. The earth awakens, the birds sing, and we journey on into another day.
There’s a similar time in the evening as the day closes. That special silence descends, and all quiets down ready to slumber through the night time. In a beautifully perfect garden, far away, Adam is not settling down. In his heart there is guilt, sorrow, thoughts of how he can evade accountability for what has taken place in the garden on that fateful evening. God is calling “Adam, where are you?”. “Adam, where are you?”. And I wondered “why” is God calling? It makes no sense – the omnipresent God knows exactly where Adam is. He’s not searching for him- calling him is for Adam’s sake, not father God’s seeking him. He needs Adam to know that his Father is seeking him, that his Father wants to spend time with him, share with him and encourage him. Adam needed to know that he was special to father God.
So where does that leave us? How many of us miss the “calling” of God? Are we so set in our routines, all good, but if they define us, what good is that. Is He calling “Val, where are you? Where are you?” This call applies to each and every one of us. Do we not hear it because we feel we are not as special as others? Do we not hear because we can’t grasp that He has a role for us to play in His Kingdom mission? Do we not hear because we are too busy with other things. My challenge is – Can you hear his heart calling you – in the quiet of the morning, or the slowing down of sunset? Or even in the midst of doing something valuable –so we mistakenly choose it instead of Him.
Val Powell
