Encouraged by the Faithful - Pt 1

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. (Genesis 4:1-2 ESV). Today we will begin a short journey through the history of the Bible remembering some of the people. I hope that you will see the “sameness” of God and his grace with all of these stories. As I wrote yesterday, it is this characteristic of God that brings us the greatest depth of hope as we live our lives. We begin at the beginning. In the creation story God speaks into existence all of the universe. He surveys what he has done and pronounces that it is “very good.” He makes man a bit differently in that he fashions Adam from the ground and “breathes life into him” (cf. Genesis 2:5-7). It is this making of man with the very life and breath of God that sets him apart from every other living thing. The story continues with the creation of woman. She is to be God’s perfect provision to complete the man. They are appointed as keepers of the creation and are given the unique provision of God’s presence each day. It must have been an incredible experience to be that close to the One who created everything they could see. Yet, the Scripture is so clear to point out the incredible failure of Adam and Eve and the resulting judgment of God forcing them out of the wonder and protection of the Garden into the world of hardship and death. They begin to experience all the difficulties of life without the direct provision of God. Adam has to work to scratch a little food from the earth, dependent on factors completely out of his control. Eve experience such pain and hurt in what should be the most joyous of events, the birth of her children. They recognize that it is “by the Lord” that are blessed with these children. Cain and Abel were a blessing, but the pain they would experience from the actions of one toward the other must have been nothing short of unbearable. Cain murders Able. That story is told just prior to the genealogical listing of all the children and their children. I wonder what Adam and Eve must have thought as they first experience the pain of the losses because of their choices. They lose so much as a result of eating the forbidden fruit. They must have thought “what if” so many times in those decades following. However, there is no doubt ever expressed in the faithfulness of God; in fact, the opposite is true. They recognize the provision of God at every turn in their life. That is a great encouragement to me. It helps me recognize that even when I make terrible decisions resulting in very difficult chains of events, God never leaves me alone or helpless to face those events alone. Just as God provided for them in the Garden, he also made provision for them in their exile. Looking back, Eve says it was “with the help of the Lord” that she was blessed. That help is available to us too. Regardless of what we may have done, God has not abandoned us to fend for ourselves!