Before sin, before brokenness, before we started hiding from God—or from each other—there was simply relationship.
Have you ever pictured the conversations Adam, Eve, and God might have shared? Did Adam and Eve ask Him questions about the sun and clouds? Did they chuckle together watching a giraffe awkwardly duck beneath a low-slung branch?
Scripture doesn’t tell us those things, of course. But it does tell us something more remarkable. They were naked and unashamed. Nothing to cover, conceal, or fear the other—or God—might see.
Eden was paradise not merely because of its beauty, but because it was safe. Before rituals, sacrifices, and complicated ways of approaching Him, there was simply intimacy. Presence. Joy. No one was performing.
And there was no history of God’s faithfulness to remember, no promises of restoration because nothing needed restoring, no yesterday filled with regret, and no tomorrow darkened by fear. There was only the God who’d created them, the world He’d given them, and the relationship they shared with Him in the moment.
Adam and Eve were simply His. They had God now. And now should have been enough.
But then, the whisper came.
Standing near the one tree their Father had placed beyond reach, the serpent introduced something new into humanity’s relationship with God. “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1 NKJV).
Suspicion disguised as harmless curiosity, posed as a question.
The serpent directed Eve’s attention toward what she didn’t have. Perhaps God was withholding something. Maybe what He’d provided wasn’t enough. Somehow, in a Garden overflowing with God’s generosity, one boundary became enough to question the heart of the Giver.
Eve looked again at the fruit. It was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and “desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6 NKJV).
So, she reached.
Immediately, their eyes were opened, and the innocence they’d never thought to appreciate disappeared. They felt exposed and stitched together fig leaves because, for the first time, being completely seen no longer felt safe.
Then came a familiar sound—God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day.
Before, that sound would have meant presence. Communion. Papa was near. But now, His children hid from the One with whom they’d once walked without fear.
“Where are you?” God called (Genesis 3:9 NKJV).
Adam answered, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself” (v. 10).
Afraid?
Nothing about God’s footsteps had changed. But something profound had changed inside His children. The God they once walked toward was now the God they hid from.
Sin, pain, and struggle entered human existence. Eventually, God would send them from the only home they’d known.
But He didn’t send them away naked.
Before they left, “the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21 NKJV). Even as consequences unfolded, the God from whom they’d hidden covered them Himself.
Then, they walked out of Eden.
Behind them, the Garden—the place where they’d known provision, safety, and unhindered communion with Papa. Ahead—a world neither knew. Work would become toil. Relationships would strain.
The earth would produce thorns. And somewhere in that unknown future waited something neither had witnessed.
Death.
For the first time in human history, there was a past worth longing for and a future worth fearing.
And Adam and Eve stood between them.
In the Now.
Reflection
We’ve been living east of Eden ever since that moment.
Now, we have a past. We can look behind us and trace God’s fingerprints through circumstances we couldn’t understand then. And we have a promised future—a day when death, sorrow, crying, and pain will finally be gone.
But neither yesterday nor tomorrow is where we live.
We live now.
The present is where diagnoses come, relationships fracture, prayers remain unanswered, and people we love die—before we know how the story ends.
But Papa didn’t leave us to figure out how to live east of Eden on our own.
Jesus came close.
The Son stepped fully into the fallen world humanity’s rebellion had caused. He didn’t observe our suffering from the safety of heaven and tell us to trust harder. He became human. He knew hunger, exhaustion, rejection, grief, and death. He prayed, followed the Spirit, and trusted His Father. From the wilderness to Gethsemane, Jesus showed us what faith could look like from inside a broken world.
And He came to do far more than show us how to live. Through His death and resurrection, He opened the way for the relationship broken in Eden to be restored. Through the Spirit, His presence isn’t merely a memory from an ancient Garden or a promise awaiting us someday.
Papa is with us now.
But we aren’t back in Eden yet. We still live among the thorns, bury people we love, and experience days when God seems painfully quiet. Paul said that for now we see “in a mirror, dimly,” but one day we’ll see “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12 NKJV).
One day faith will give way to sight—just not today.
Today we live in between. And beneath our struggle to trust God here may be an even deeper question.
Do we believe He wants us here with Him?
That was one of the first things shame distorted in Eden. Adam heard God approaching and hid. We still hide too. Not behind trees and fig leaves, but we promise ourselves we’ll come closer when we’re doing better. We believe God loves us in the theological sense yet quietly wonder whether He particularly enjoys having us around in our present condition.
You see, most of us don’t stumble over God’s power. We stumble over His pleasure.
That’s why Zephaniah’s words are so startling. “The LORD your God in your midst… will rejoice over you with gladness… He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17 NKJV).
Notice where He is.
In your midst.
Not merely the God who was faithful yesterday or the God who promises to make everything right someday. He’s the God who’s present with His people now.
That doesn’t mean sin doesn’t matter. Eden destroyed that idea. Adam and Eve were loved, yet there were still consequences. But consequences didn’t mean abandonment. God covered the children who’d tried so desperately to cover themselves.
Maybe that’s where present-tense faith has to begin. Before I can trust Papa with what happens next, I have to trust His heart toward me now. Not toward the person I hope to become. Not toward the person I think I should already be.
So where are you still hiding from Papa until you become the person you think He wants you to be? When you imagine Him looking at you as you are right now—with the failure, the questions, and the things you’re still trying to get right—do you believe He actually wants you near Him?
Faith remembers what God has done. Faith holds tightly to what He’s promised to do. The past gives us evidence. The future gives us hope.
But faith can only be lived in the present.
So, stop hiding. Papa isn’t waiting for a better version of you to show up.
He’s with you now.
Prayer
Papa,
Teach me to trust You here and now—in the part of my story I can’t yet understand. When shame tells me to hide, remind me that You’ve already come close. Help me remember Your faithfulness, trust Your promises, and live with You in the moment You’ve given me.
Amen.
About The Author
Michael C. Davis spent nearly thirty years wandering as an agnostic who was often angry with the God he wasn’t sure he believed in. After finding his way home, Michael has spent the closing years of a successful business career increasingly drawn to writing about the God he now calls Papa. Over the past year, he’s written nearly one hundred devotionals exploring Scripture through a relational lens and has completed two full-length manuscripts awaiting publication—I Call Him Papa: From Religion to Relationship, an exploration of knowing God through relationship rather than ritual and Letting Go of What Plagues Us: From Bondage to Belonging, a devotional journey through Exodus. You can explore more of Michael’s writing at www.MichaelCDavisAuthor.com.
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