“Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God,”

This is the Word of God without context. Alone it only holds such meaning as the human mind can muster by reason and experience. We might play with the meaning out of context in order to argue with an unbeliever. How the meaning when used in that manner would be heard by the unbeliever without context and fall on deaf ears.

Deuteronomy 1:31-33 English Standard Version (ESV)

³¹ and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ ³² Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God, ³³ who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.

In context the unbeliever is reminded that they have in fact seen God move in their life and refused to acknowledge that it was God. Spite in this case is an arrogant disregard of grace. Grace like the manna in the wilderness needs to be gathered or it will fade away like the manna. Eventually grace ignored with arrogant disregard will stop falling.

We might ask rightfully what that has to do with us today.

2 Corinthians 4:15 English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁵ For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

How will the lost know the grace of God if we do not extend it to them? Grace is given to be shared. Receiving grace and holding it dear to ourselves does not glorify God.

Genesis 3:9 English Standard Version (ESV) But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

When I wake up and I do not find my wife in bed sleeping beside me, I get up and go looking for her. I do so because I love her and want to be with her.

God loves us and comes looking for us in that same manner. He loves us and seeks to have the personal love connection each and every morning. You in Genesis 3:9 and 3:11 is the singular form of the Hebrew word. It is personal, it is not the collective you. God wants to spend personal time with you.

That hasn’t changed.

“Where are you?”

Were your first thoughts in the morning about God and spending time with Him in a close personal relationship? If we are to have a close personal relationship with our God, then as in all relationships we must set aside time to get personal.

Over the past week or so I have shared with you my memories of coming back to God by reading my bible. I did not know how to study the bible. I didn’t have it “all figured out”. As adults there will always be this sense of need to understand, to reason, to rationalize, to get involved.

When we are born again, we are a new creature, a babe in Christ. Do babies understand everything going on around them? They tend to love instinctively because they are loved. The bond between the mother and child is necessary for good emotional growth. The bond makes the difference, not the baby’s understanding.

Red the Word towards that same end. Love being loved. See the reading of your bible as a means of getting to participate in this relationship. It should not be work. It is not education, it is relationship.

Decades late none of that has changed. I have changed but the love that I have draws me back to maintaining the relationship in the same way. Reading His Word is an exercise in relationship, a way to love God in a personal way.