QUESTIONS GOD ASKS US. #2 – “What is this you have done?”

Here is another question we are told that God has asked of our fellow humans? Genesis 3:13 says God asked: “What is this you have done?”

That may seem like a strange question, but in the context two things seem to make it very relevant. First, this human couple stamped with “the image of God” are presented as wonderful, but with very limited understanding of God and of themselves. They only know God is present when God comes to be with them in a special way. They also think they can hide from God. They are child-like in terms of experience even though they are adults.

Before we write this off as no longer applying to us 21^st century sophisticated humans, you might ask yourself the question that I am asking myself. When I am making choices, how often do I really let myself be conscious that God knows what I am doing right now? When I have already made choices to act, how often do I let myself be conscious that God knows what I have done? Those are not rhetorical questions about your theology or philosophy concerning omniscience. Rather, they are simple questions about what you and I really let ourselves experience as we live our lives? Do we allow ourselves to consciously choose to live in the presence of God as we think and act?

Second, my personal experience, and my guess is yours as well, is that I am often quite unaware of “what I have done.” No, I don’t mean I can’t remember acting. I am growing older, but I am not quite there yet. I mean, I often have no idea, and do not contemplate, what the consequences of my actions really are. Equally importantly, I often do not ask God what they are either. How do they impact God and God’s purposes? How do they impact other humans—those close by, or those far away, those very different from me in terms of privilege or resources, or those yet to be born? How do they impact the creation that God has given us to steward? How do they impact my own character?

I suspect that one of the reasons I am often unaware of the consequences of my thoughts and actions is that I often do not really want to know. Am I willing to ask God to make me more aware of the consequences of my thoughts and actions day by day? I find this a bit more daunting than I like to admit. But I am working on it. How about you?