It came as quite a shock. I rode my bike back and forth to elementary school each day. When I would come home, as I was putting my bicycle away, I liked to bounce the front tire off the garage wall. It was fun to do that with a bit of speed, giving me a nice satisfying jolt.

One day, however, I hit the wall with a bit too much speed. To my dismay, the sheetrock gave way, leaving a jagged hole in the wall. I had broken the wall.

As an adult, that’s not that big of a surprise. Sheetrock has a breaking point. But to a kid, that was a shocking discovery. Walls were solid. Solid things didn’t break. You could rely on walls and doors and counters to always support you.

My understanding of the world changed that day. I don’t want to be too overdramatic, but it’s true. I’m sure it wasn’t the first such discovery nor was it the last, but it’s one that stands out in my mind. Something that I thought I could depend on turned out to be more fragile than I thought.

So what are you depending on? What is solid in your world? Are you depending on yourself, on your own strength? On your health? On your ability to provide for your family?

Do you depend on the government? Is your confidence resting on military forces and police forces that protect you? Are you counting on politicians to look out for your every need?

What is solid in your world? Relationships? Money? Work? Almost all of us have learned that these things have a breaking point, like the sheetrock in our garage wall when I was a kid. Solid is relative.

Unless, of course, your life is built around God. God neither bends nor breaks. He doesn’t change. He doesn’t disappear. He doesn’t fail.

God is the only “solid” that is truly solid. All other things will let us down; the unchanging God will be there until the end of time.

Build your life on a solid foundation. Base your future on God and His promises.

On a trip to Las Vegas, Hughes had a disagreement with the owner of one casino. His answer? He bought the casino and several around it. Money was his answer for everything.

Hughes was also nicknamed the world’s greatest womanizer. He dated various beautiful Hollywood actresses, including Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Havilland, and Katherine Hepburn.

In his prime, Hughes was a daring aviator and tireless tinkerer who spurred science to new heights. He was an industrialist, entrepreneur, and world record setter. His wooden plane, the Spruce Goose, was the largest amphibious plane ever built, and was taller and wider than any aircraft in history.

Surely this was a man who had it all. Despite all of that, Hughes lived his last twenty years in reclusion. He refused to appear in public or to be photographed. He became an extreme hypochondriac, with an unnatural fear of germs. He was only seen by his doctors and his personal servants. He refused to cut his hair, his beard or his nails.

It was a miserable life. When he died, he was a wretched skeleton of a man, who died outside the presence of family or friends.

Money is not the answer to everything. It can’t purchase happiness. It can’t bring us peace. It can’t even prolong our lives.

Jesus said, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:20-21).

The apostle Paul said something similar when he wrote:

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life (1 Timothy 6:18-19).

Howard Hughes had money, but he didn’t have what Paul calls “the life that is truly life.” He had a dismal imitation of life that no one would choose for themselves.

If your life is built around money and the things it can obtain, you’ll never know what true life is. If your treasure isn’t being stored up in heaven, it will come to be worthless to you one day. You need God and the riches he can give. You need to build your life around the things that will never lose value, that will never fail to satisfy.

You need God.

But this time it was different:

• Both the man and woman had disobeyed God

• They had hidden themselves from God

• God was walking alone

• God must have known why it was different because He is God

Then the question that could be heard throughout the garden, by all of God’s creatures “Where Are You?”

This is how Genesis 3:8-9 reads: “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him ‘where are you’.”

I am struck by the fact that immediately after they disobeyed Him, God still wants to know where they are. And while there are consequences to their action, it is God who makes them clothes (v 21) and even after they left the garden, the man and the woman acknowledge God as the one from who life comes. Gen. 4:1

God is always asking “where are you?”, even after you have sinned against Him.

How many times after the Jews leave Egypt did they say they would do what God has commanded, and didn’t?

How many times in the book of Judges does it say “and the Jews did what was right in their own eyes” and had to have God rescue them by sending judge after judge?

Saul, David and the prophets personally and representationally claimed to follow God and then disobeyed.

And still God called, wanting to know where they were.

It is in Luke 15:4-9, that Jesus tells about the Shepherd who searches until he finds the last sheep and rejoices. It was the Shepherd who did the looking.

It is God who sent His Son to allow us to live with Him (John 3:16) and then read verse 17. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him might be saved.”

It is the final book of the Bible, Revelation, where this idea becomes complete, 3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to Him and dine with him and he with me.”

God, Jesus, take the initiative, they are at the door.

The action of God at the beginning of the world-calling to know where you are; knowing that you have disobeyed Him is the same at the end of the world as He stands at the door waiting for you to open it.

So when God asked you “where are you?” why haven’t you answered?

Do you feel unworthy to open the door?

If you have answered and opened the door, tell me what that felt like.

Doing this research caused me to be reminded of how we often expect God to respond to our timetable. We sometimes question God’s faithfulness to act in response to our requests when answers don’t come immediately. We must remember that God’s faithfulness, like “Old Faithful,” doesn’t act according to our time. There are occasions when there are long periods of time between trouble and resolution. As we mature and our faith increases, we begin to realize that God is ever faithful. Even when the time stretches longer as we wait for His answers, our faith increases, knowing that He always answers. Because of the faithfulness of Father God we can be filled with joy and sing of His great love forever.

I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself (Psalm 89:1-2).

If you aren’t carrying the song of joy in your heart because of a lack of trust in the faithfulness of our Father, leave a comment or contact us at hopeforlife.org.

There on Patmos, John has an impressive vision of Jesus, risen from the dead and standing triumphantly. Jesus shares with John a message of hope and encouragement for his followers that are about to suffer a time of persecution. This message, contained in the Book of Revelation, is couched in symbolic language, a style of writing commonly used at that time. While much of it seems strange to us, the symbols used in Revelation would have been familiar to the original readers.

John sees Jesus standing in the middle of seven golden lampstands, which Jesus later explains: “The seven lampstands are the seven churches” (Revelation 1:20). John then receives seven letters for seven churches in the Roman province of Asia, an area where the Roman emperor was about to make problems for the Christians. Jesus begins the first letter by saying: “These are the words of him who … walks among the seven golden lampstands” (Revelation 2:1).

The message of this image is as simple as it is important: when Jesus’ followers face difficult times, Jesus is there with them. He stands in the middle of his churches, not far from them. In each of the seven letters, Jesus uses the phrase “I know …” He knows what they’ve done, he knows their circumstances, he knows the enemies they face and the struggles they have. He writes to them as one who is infinitely familiar with every aspect of their lives. He walks among the lampstands.

None of that has changed. God knows you. He knows the good things you’ve done and the mistakes you’ve made. He knows the obstacles you’ve faced and what you’ve had to face them with. He knows your abilities and your possibilities even better than you do.

And he’s not far away. He’s nearby, waiting for you to turn to him and ask him for help. Whether you are facing persecution from the government or temptation from a co-worker, God wants to give you the strength to face whatever it is that threatens to pull you away from him. He’s close. He knows. And he cares.