This was a short speech I was asked to give at my graduation from Western Seminary, reflecting on what the process had actually produced in me.
“Ayeka.” (אַיֶּֽכָּה) A single word that carries with it a question that runs throughout the story of Scripture.
In Genesis 3:9, God calls to the man in the garden, “Where are you?” In Genesis 16:8, Hagar in the wilderness is asked by the Angel of the Lord, “Where have you come from, and where are you going?” In 1 Kings 19:9, Elijah in the cave hears, “What are you doing here?” In each case, the question is the same. Ayeka.
The question is not asked to locate a body but to locate a life. It is asked by one who already sees and is already present. The question is not concerned with where they are, but what has become of them and where they are headed.
My doctoral work at Western Seminary has been a retrieval of that way of attending to the soul. In studying the church fathers and Protestant Reformers, I found a long history of care that treated the soul as something that could be read with attention and handled with care. They worked with Scripture in hand, paying close attention to how people live, how they respond, what they do when they are under pressure, where they tend to go when things fall apart.
My dissertation traced that thread to help people recognize where they are, not just describe what has happened, but see the location of their soul God.
And this was a personal question that followed me through my time at Western. At the beginning of the program, the question was simple: Where are you? Not in terms of goals or direction, but in terms of what was actually driving me to be here. As I moved deeper into the program, I would hear the question again: “Where are you?” And this time different. I heard the Lord asking, ‘What has all this study actually produced in you?’
What I have found is that the power of that question is not in what it explains, but in what it forces into the open. It brings a person face-to-face with where they actually are. That is precisely where the gospel does its transformative work. The gospel is not advice about how to manage our lives better. The gospel is a message that exposes what is unmanageable to begin with. It speaks to what is true beneath the excuses and explanations. The gospel presses past the surface complaints to the deeper concerns of our souls.
And that is why the message it proclaims is not a vague claim about love. It is that one has borne the judgment our sin deserves. Secured the forgiveness we cannot produce. And restored us to God with a standing we did not earn.
In my work, what I have seen is that when the blame, the confusion, the isolation is brought into the open, a person is no longer hidden from themselves. They can be located. And once they are located, they can be led—moving from “What happened to me?” to “What is happening in me?” Confusion can turn to direction, guilt can meet forgiveness, shame can step out of hiding, and what has been distant can be brought near.
And that is why this question has stayed with me.
Where are you?