By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer

If God asked you a question, what would it be?

“God doesn’t need to ask me a question,” you say. “He already knows everything about me.”

True, He does know everything about you, but God is relational. He asks questions of those He loves. 

In the Garden of Eden when Adam didn’t show up for the evening stroll, God asked, “Where are you?” Could God not see the man He created hiding among the trees? (Genesis 3:9)

After the prophet Elijah fled to Mt. Horeb in suicidal desperation, God asked, “What are you doing here?” Was Elijah’s discouraged heart beyond God’s notice? (1Kings 19:9,13)

When a blind beggar cried out for mercy, Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” Was it not obvious to Jesus that the man wanted to be healed? (Mark 10:51)

I believe the Lord asks these same questions of us today because we are the ones who need to hear the answers. 

• Where are you? Is God waiting for you in the cool of the evening or the quiet pre-dawn to talk with you, listen to your concerns, warm you with His presence as you worship Him? Have you missed that appointment often enough that God is whispering, “Where are you?”
• What are you doing here? Have you run away from something the Lord called you to do? Have you thrown up your hands in disgust or discouragement and quit? Are you in the wrong place at the wrong time, wondering how you ended up in a cave, how you got so off track?
• What do you want me to do for you? Jesus said we miss out on a lot because we don’t ask. What is it exactly that you need from Him? Can you pinpoint it? Are you willing to ask, or are you afraid He won’t come through with an answer?

An all-knowing God who asks us questions is a personal God who cares about relationship. The answers may seem obvious at first glance, but if we look deeper, do we really know where we are, what we’re doing, and what we want from God? 

What is He asking you?

~

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Job 38:4

~

“The Lord’s questions always reveal me to myself.” -Oswald Chambers

At the next block, Cale made a right turn. “My horse in the alley behind the barber shop. If you don’t want to walk down there, you can wait here, and I’ll bring your satchel.”

“I can walk,” Ella said tightly.

He stopped and faced her determined chin. Her stiff shoulders.

“That’s not what I meant.” His neck itched. “I know you can walk. And a fine job you do of it too.”

She raised her head to look him in the eye and crossed her arms into a barricade.

“I mean, you’re hardly limping at all today.”

Her head tipped to the side, but her eyes never left his.

His collar band tightened. “Not that you limp, mind you.”

One small foot began to tap.

“You do real well for someone who . . . who . . .”

The paper sack crinkled in her hand. “For someone who’s a cripple?”

Tarnation, he was digging himself deep. “No. That’s not what I was going to say.” He pulled his hat off and ran his sleeve across his brow. “You know I don’t see you like that. I mean . . . what I’m trying to say is—”

“Yes?”

“Well, if you were a horse, I wouldn’t put you down.”

~

What did a lady say to a man who compared her to a horse? A lame horse, at that.

If Cale hadn’t said he had her camera, Ella would leave him there at the alley’s entrance and march straight back to the studio. After pushing him off the curb.

“On second thought, I’ll wait here,” she told him.

He moved toward her. She moved back. A perfect dance step if they were dancing. But the only fancy footwork at the moment was Cale Hutton attempting to remove his boot from his mouth.

“Ella, please.”

He’d used her given name. “Do you have my camera or don’t you, Mr. Hutton?”

His jaw locked and his eyes dulled.

She straightened her spine and held his gaze. She might be maimed, but she refused to be pathetic.

He finally turned and strode down the alley.

Tears threatened. She pressed her fists into her eyes, crumpling the paper bag in the process, and drew a deep breath. He hadn’t actually called her a cripple. That was Mabel’s line, so oft repeated that no one could forget it. Especially Ella.

Why had she planted the insidious barb into their conversation when he was simply attempting to be . . . what? Generous? Kind? Sympathetic? She didn’t want his sympathy. ~A Change of Scenery

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