Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked?
- Genesis 3:8-11

Human beings—even in seemingly secular environments—are profoundly shaped by the longings that religion addresses. The desire for meaning, transcendence, and a connection to something greater plays out in diverse ways. We are like characters in a living novel, yearning to know the author, the plot, and the nature of the story in which we find ourselves.

We long to understand, yet we fear it may be unknowable. How can we discover what this "something greater" truly is? The unbeliever asks these questions, searching for clarity. The believer may think they hold an answer but still yearns for a deeper connection. At times, it feels as though God is hidden.

Genesis 3 offers an explanation for this pervasive sense of separation from our Creator. When Eve and Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they gained precisely that—knowledge. They became aware of God's goodness and humanity's brokenness. Overwhelmed by shame, they hid.

They hid from each other, covering themselves with garments of fig leaves. They hid from God's presence behind the trees. They even hid from themselves, offering excuses to deflect responsibility.

This impulse to hide stems from the unsettling awareness of being finite creatures in the presence of the Infinite.

Yet, the hope in this passage is profound: God was looking for them.

We often think we are seeking while God is elusive, but the truth is the opposite. We are the ones hiding, and God is always searching, calling, and waiting for us to return to Him. The entire story of the Bible is one of God seeking those who are hiding.

You don’t need to uncover a profound secret or achieve esoteric wisdom. The hidden thing is not a mystery to solve—it is you. And the searcher is God.