Vanishing Omnipresence

God's a busy guy.  I can only imagine how much crap this guy must put up with on a daily basis, what with being in charge of the entire universe.  Humans have a hard enough time taking care of one measly little planet, and there's six billion of us.  There's only one God.  I guess that's why, once in a while, God temporarily forgets that he's omnipresent.  Hey, it happens, right?

Genesis 3 is the first example the Bible gives us of God's vanishing cosmic power.  Eve, the rib-wife of the first man, is told by a snake to go munch fruit from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Eve's hesitant, but eventually the snake convinces her to do it (not by deceiving her, as is commonly believed, but by telling the truth: God doesn't want Adam and Eve to smarten up.)  So Adam and Eve do the most infamous lunch in history, God gets righteously pissed off, and the first couple get booted out of paradise, leaving all of us to wonder why the hell God put the forbidden tree in the middle of human territory in the first place if he didn't want anyone to touch it.

But tucked away in all that excitement is this:

The omnipresent God comes strolling through Eden, presumably whistling Stairway to Heaven or whatever songs divine beings listen to.  Adam hears him coming and, knowing that he's in deep shit, takes his wife and hides in a tree.

They hide from the Almighty ... in a tree.

Adam and Eve hide in a tree.  From the omnipotent, omnipresent God.

They hide in a TREE to escape GOD.

That's like being the target of a nation-wide FBI manhunt, and you hide in the White House.  By standing in the Oval Office with a lampshade on your head.

THEY HIDE IN A TREE TO ESCAPE GOD.

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Okay.  Continuing on with the story:

"And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" - Genesis 3:9

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WHAT?!

Not only did Adam hide his stupid ass in a tree to escape the almighty, all-seeing LORD with a capital L-O-R-D, but it actually WORKED?!

No way.  No WAY.  Clearly I just overlooked some little detail, like the part where God points at Adam, laughs hysterically and yells, "Just kidding, I'm fucking omnipresent, bitch!  Seriously, get out of that tree and stop acting like an idiot."  I just need an actual church-goer to explain this to me, then it will all make sense:

"It's like if you have a kid who writes on the wall and you ask them, 'Did you write on the wall?' It might seem like a stupid question if you only have one kid. But you're just trying to get the kid to be honest with you. Of course you know the kid wrote on the wall.You're just trying to test their honesty." (By user M.Y. of Yahoo Answers)

Oh.  Okay.  Well, that would make sense if the question was this:

"... Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" - Genesis 3:11.

But it's not.  Not yet.  God WALKS into Eden and asks Adam where he is.  He's omnipresent.  He's all-seeing and all-knowing, and he has to call out to Adam to find him.  That's what the words say.  You can't spin it any other way without stretching.

To be fair, it's a better explanation than what the professionals offer:

"The context of this verse is immediately after Adam had sinned.  ... Does this mean that God didn't know something?  Not at all.  Someone can easily ask a question to which they know the answer.  Usually, the reason to do that is to point something out or teach something.  Obviously, Adam and Eve had sinned.  God asked, "Adam, where are you?" Where was Adam?  He was hiding from God.  Adam's sin had destroyed his fellowship with the Lord.  God knew this and He was pointing it out to Adam.  It is a question we need to ask of ourselves.  Where am I?  Am I in fellowship with God or in rebellion against Him?" (from the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry)

Uh, right.  You shouldn't stretch so hard there, guys.  You might tear something.