The effects of the disobedience were the opposite to what the natural guilty world would expect God’s reaction to be. We would think God would, in anger and wrath, turn His back on the two. But it was precisely the other way around. It was Adam who hid from God, not God from Adam. Here was God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” and looking for Adam. But where was Adam? Hidden in the bushes. Nor was God displaying some wrathful retaliation, but only questioning Adam…to bring the reality of the disobedience home to him. For when He came face to face with the three, the serpent and Adam and Eve everything God said was to clarify to them the “beneficial” consequence which they, thankfully, could not escape—a way of life which always has sorrow at its roots. God said in effect, “Eve, you will have sorrow one way; Adam, you will have sorrow another way.” That was all. And of course, the point of the sorrow would be that the whole human race through all its centuries of history would always be inwardly miserable, always knowing they were missing the mark and meaning of life, always seeking a phony happiness which would always escape them…and thus, always at the heart of every man, however covered up, is a sense of lostness and a longing for fulfillment. That alone was God’s judgment on His disobedient children, a judgment totally for their benefit.

Taken from “Yes I am” by Norman Grubb