Three fundamental questions

"The LORD God called the man, and said to him : Where are you ?"

"The LORD God said to the woman : What have you done ?"

"The angel of the LORD ... said : Hagar, servant of Sarai, where did you come from, and where are you going ?" Genesis 3,9,13; 16. 8

In the course of life, three fundamental questions inevitably rise in the mind of every man. It is God himself who asks them.

• Where are you ?

This question God asks Adam after he has eaten forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Adam is afraid of God and hides. But God wants Adam to realize that there is no place to hide from him and that he has to go back to the root of the evil before God. When God denounces his disobedience as the root of evil, Adam, to avoid confessing his sin, goes so far as to indirectly accuse God of his fall : "The woman you gave me to be with me, - she told me given the tree, and I ate it." The resulting rupture is so complete, so great a departure from God, that God finally had to send His Son to seek us, save us and bring us to Him.

• What did you do ?

In response to this question, Eve seeks to exculpate herself by rejecting the responsibility for the disaster on the cunning snake. But God shows him that she can not escape her responsibilities and that her fault has consequences. He pronounces a judgment on the serpent, on Adam, and on Eve.

• Where do you come from and where are you going ?

Nobody can answer this double question whose terms are inseparable except God. The Angel of the Lord places her in the desert, near a spring of water, to Hagar, Sarah's handmaid. Pregnant Ishmael, she fled away his mistress. This question reminds her of her slave position, which she seeks to escape by returning to her homeland in Egypt. Three times the Angel of the Lord speaks, the first to engage Hagar to submit to his mistress who mistreats her ; the second, to encourage him by a promise, and the third to reveal to him the name, character, and destiny of the son who will be born of her. God also addresses these questions to us when we have moved away from him, like Adam and Eve, or when we are in disarray, like Hagar. In this century of din, let us listen to the voice of God and obey it, rather than claiming our autonomy and deciding for ourselves what is good and what is wrong.

Source (Pleasing the Lord)