Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. I'm Kirsten Holmberg, and I titled today's

reading, Hiding from God. I squeezed my eyes shut and started counting aloud. My fellow

third grade classmates tore out of the room to find a place to hide. After scouring

every cabinet, trunk, and closet for what felt like ours, I still couldn't find one of my friends.

I felt ridiculous when she finally jumped out from behind a lacy, potted fern hanging from the ceiling.

Only her head had been eclipsed by the plant.

The rest of her body had been in plain sight the entire time.

Since God is all-knowing when Adam and Eve hid from him in the Garden of Eden,

they were always in plain sight.

But they weren't playing any childhood game. They were experiencing the sudden awareness and shame of their wrongdoing, having eaten from the tree God told them not to eat from.

Adam and Eve turned from God and his loving provision when they disobeyed his instructions.

Instead of withdrawing from them in anger, however, he sought them out, asking, where are you?

It's not that he didn't know where they were, but he wanted them to know his compassionate

concern for them. I couldn't see my friend hiding, but God always sees us and knows us. To him,

we're always in plain sight. Just as he pursued Adam and Eve, Jesus sought us out while we were still sinners,

dying on the cross to demonstrate his love for us. We no longer need to hide.

Today's Our Daily Read Devotional Scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 through 10.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent,

we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat fruit from the

tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die.

You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat from it,

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