Genesis

Salt in the Wound

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In Genesis chapter 19, we see the two men that were with Abraham (spoiler alert: they are angels) go down to Sodom. Lot (Abraham’s nephew) sees the men and offers for them men to stay at his house. After some persuading, they agree. This is where things get crazy!

All the men of the town surround Lot’s house at night and demand that the new men staying with Lot come out so they can “have their way with them”. Lot tried to talk with the men surrounding the house so that they wouldn’t try to mess with the angels, he even offered up his two virgin daughters to the men in place of the angels (somehow that’s less messed up?). Those dudes weren’t having it though, especially from a foreigner like Lot, so they tried to attack Lot and break down the door to get to the angels. Before they could do that, the angels opened the door, snatched Lot and locked him in the house, then blinded all the men that were trying to attack them.

After that, the angels tell Lot to take all of his family and get out of the city, because stuff’s about to get real! God sent the angels to destroy the city because the place is too evil to exist. Lot told his son-in-laws what was up and they thought he was joking, so they didn’t move. The angels said “forget them, Lot you and your wife and daughters need to go now.” Lot was still lollygagging (not rushing, clearly not motivated by the impending doom) so the angels grabbed him by the arm and took him and his wife and daughters outside of the city so they wouldn’t go down in the destruction. The angels told them to escape to the hills and don’t stop or look back.

Lot was freaked out and didn’t think he could make it to the hills, so he asked the angels if he could run to a small town in the middle of nowhere that was closer instead. The angels agreed, but told him to hurry because they couldn’t start destroying things until he was safe.

When the sun rose in the morning, Lot and his family arrived at Zoar ( the small town). When they arrived, God sent a rain of fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the valley, destroying them. Lot’s wife decided to look back on the place they had escaped (despite the angels’ instructions) and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Abraham woke up and saw all the fire and smoke from his house and thought of Lot and God’s promise to rescue him.

Eventually Lot left Zoar with his two daughters and moved into a cave in the hills (the hills that he told the angels he didn’t want to live in). Lot was getting pretty old and his daughters were getting older too. The daughters felt their biological clocks ticking and since God had wiped out all of them men in the land, they came up with a plan to get their father drunk and sleep with him. Both daughters became pregnant, the older one with a son named Moab and the younger one with a son named Ben-Ammi. This is where the Moabites and the Ammonites came from.

There is A LOT that went on in this chapter. Firstly though, if some dudes show up at your house and blind a whole bunch of people, then tell you to leave your house before you get destroyed with everyone else, maybe listen to them. Secondly, if you do evil stuff you’re going to get destroyed – so maybe don’t do evil stuff? Third, rules are in place for a reason. If someone says, hey don’t do this or you will die, don’t be surprised if there are some massive consequences when you do the thing you weren’t supposed to do. And lastly, if you raise your kids around a whole bunch of crazy, don’t be surprised when they act crazy.

I think the main point of this chapter is to show two things. 1) that God keeps his word. He spared Lot’s life like He said He would and He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah like He said He would. Everything He said He would do He did, so I think it’s safe to say that if He says He’s going to do something, He will. 2) actions have consequences. Being evil will consume you and get you destroyed. Being good could spare your life. And following directions will get you to safety.

God destroys the wicked places in our life for a reason. Sometimes we live somewhere (physically or metaphorically) that we are not meant to live in. Even though we may be a light in the dark place, if we weren’t assigned to be there, aren’t spreading our light (standing up to darkness) or if we are not connected to a source of light ourselves, we may be tempted to pick up some of the dark thought processes (ie offering the wicked men your daughters). When God destroys a place, he doesn’t want us to stop moving forward to our next place or to look back on the old place. He moved us out of there for a reason. He spared our life, so keep your eyes on the prize!

Be encouraged that He kept you from the destruction. You may not see the smoke or pillars of fire and He may have had to send angels to pull you out of there kicking and screaming, but the people who care for you (the Abrahams in your life who prayed that you would be spared) can see all of the smoke and know that you are safe.

Conversations with God

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In Genesis chapter 18, Abraham is hanging out by his tent when God appears to him and then three men show up and Abraham runs to greet them and offers to wash their feet, feed them and let them rest a while in his camp. This is another example of Abraham’s hospitable nature, it’s ingrained in him, it’s part of his character. After Abraham sets an entire feast in front of his guests, they asked him where his wife Sarah was and Abraham says that she is in the tent [as in that say it wasn’t proper for wives to entertain company]. One of the men then tells Abraham that he will return to Abraham in about a year and that Sarah will have a son in that time.

Hearing the man speak, Sarah laughed to herself and was like, “Great, now that I’m all gray haired and old I’ll finally get pregnant and have a baby. How can that be?”

Then the man looked to Abraham and asked why Sarah laughed at his words and then said, “is there anything too hard for God?” Sarah tried to deny laughing because she was afraid, but he called her out on that. I would have done the same though, it seems almost like human nature to deny things when we are afraid because maybe if we don’t acknowledge that we messed up, maybe it will go away and not be an issue. Maybe no one will notice our shortcomings or missteps if we pretend they didn’t happen. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, did it make a sound? Well, I’m not sure if it made a noise, but I do know that it fell down and denying that by saying it didn’t make a sound doesn’t change the tree fell over. In the same vein, Sarah may not have made any sound, but she sure did laugh and God knew that.

After that exchange, Abraham walks with the men towards Sodom for a little ways. During this walk, God tells Abraham that they are headed to Sodom and Gomorrah to see what they have done because they were a city full of evil people doing evil things. The three men headed towards the city, but Abraham hung back with God for a minuet.

Abraham asked God if he was going to destroy the righteous people along with the evil people, take out the innocent because of the guilty. Abraham asks if there were 50 good people in the city, would God spare that place for the good people? Abraham says, “you wouldn’t do that, right God? Because you’re a good God.” He’s basically saying, I know your character God, you wouldn’t kill the innocent would you? And God responds by saying that he would spare the 50 righteous people. So then Abraham asks, well what if there were only 45 good people, would you spare them? And God says yes. Abraham asks a few more times until he gets down to 10 and asks what if there were only 10 good people, would you spare them? God again says yes. Then God went on his way and Abraham went back to his home and that’s where we end the chapter.

Now there is A LOT going on in this chapter and the action really breaks down into two parts. The first part is when Abraham invites the men to his camp and Sarah laughs at what God says. I find this particularly funny because God has been continually showing up for Abraham and Sarah and telling them that they’re promised to have a son, but because of their age and how long they’ve been waiting on this promise it seems impossible. I know that I’m the type of person where I’ll believe it when I see it. If there’s no evidence proving that you’re going to do what you said you were going to do, it’s not going to happen until it does IF it does. I would have laughed right along with Sarah, but here’s the thing: this wasn’t a friend or a parent or a random person telling Sarah what was promised for her future, this was the God of all creation. This was the God that got them out of some really tight situations. Once again, God reaffirms His promise and gives a timeline to it now, saying in about a year that promise will be fulfilled.

The second part of the chapter is where God and Abraham talk about the fate of Sodom. Now if you remember a few chapters back, Abraham’s nephew Lot lives in Sodom, so Abraham has a lot to lose if God destroys the city. I love how Abraham reminds God of God’s character before asking if He will spare the city. He was like “I know you, but also I want to make sure that I know you.” And I love that God is willing to have this conversation with Abraham. He’s willing to talk him through what’s going to happen, willing to answer questions, and willing to ease some of Abraham’s fears before He does anything.

Be encouraged! That God of this chapter is the same God of today. He keeps His promises, even if they seem impossible or take a long time to manifest and He is willing to have a conversation and answer questions about anything, including the things that scare us. I dare you to start that conversation with Him! His character hasn’t changed, so give it a shot.

Still Waiting on a Promise

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In Genesis chapter 17, we find a 99 year old Abram still waiting on a promise from God. The Lord has appeared to him 4 times before telling Abram that he will have a son with Sarah and yet he hasn’t seen it. In this chapter, we see God come to Abram and say “I am the God Almighty [most powerful/sufficient]”… God reminds Abram of who He is and then goes on to say that He’s going to keep His word to Abram by making covenant with him. We’ll remember from Genesis chapter 15 that a covenant is a legal agreement, but in this chapter, God is requiring for Abram to give something in the covenant – to be a participant.

God promises to Abram that he will have a son with Sarai, even in their late age. Sarai’s womb that was a tomb will now bring life, the place that was dead will awaken and the promise that God had with Abram all along will be fulfilled. As a sign of this change on God’s end, He renames Abram calling him Abraham [father of many] and He renames Sarai calling her Sarah [princess]. In giving them a new name, God gives them a new identity.

On the flip side, God asks Abraham to walk blamelessly and as a sign that he is one of God’s people, he and any male in his family needs to be circumcised [cut off their foreskin]. That is a permanent, everlasting sign that shows their promise to follow God. Is it painful? Yes, but all great promises come at a cost. This is serious dedication and at 99 years old, Abraham is all in. There’s no going back form this.

After this, God goes on to tell Abraham about his and Sarah’s son and Abraham starts laughing. He laughs at what God says in a yeah right kind of way. Because of this, God tells Abraham to name his son Isaac [he laughs]. God finishes up talking to Abraham by reassuring him again that he will be a father to many nations.

At the end of the chapter, Abraham and all his male servants and his son Ishmael are all circumcised.

There are 2 things that speak to me when I read this chapter. The first is that God can give you a new name and a new identity. The people down the street might have known you as Joe the Joke or Gloria the Gossip, but God can call you Father of Many, or Mighty Warrior, or Sweet One, or Beautiful, or Honored, Honest, Rich, Loyal or Loved and as long as you walk in that new name, that new promise, it doesn’t matter what the people down the street say. They just haven’t seen God’s promise on you life yet, they don’t know your new identity and they haven’t gotten their new identity yet. It’s like watching a superhero movie. Peter Parker knows that something happened after the radio active spider bit him, but everyone else around him still sees plain old Peter. Just because that’s what they see doesn’t change the fact that he’s a superhero. Remind yourself that the world might see who you used to be, but God turned you into a superhero.

The second thing that sticks with me is that God is willing to turn a dead place into a place that brings forth life. A womb has one job, and yet Sarah’s womb couldn’t get it together to produce children. It didn’t work right. It didn’t do what it was supposed to do. It was as dead as her hope. She honestly thought she would never birth a kid and at 90 years old, it’s hard to not think that that ship had sailed. But the most amazing thing is that God can take the things that are dead, buried, mourned for and forgotten about and He can bring them to life. If He promised it, He will make it happen, you just have to hold on to the promise. It might take 90 years to happen, but the dead things can come alive again. The dead place can produce life. The forgotten hope can be revived.

Be encouraged! God keeps His promises and He’s willing to remind you as many times as you need to that He will keep His promise. Sometime we need to do something to show our dedication in the process, we need to walk with God in this, but His promise is His promise. Just keep holding on, it will happen. God is faithful!

Pregnant with Doubt

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In Genesis chapter 16, we find Abram and Sarai’s hope fading once again about ever having a child. We are reminded once again that Sarai has bore Abram no children and in this time of waiting for a promise that never seems to come true, Sarai gets the idea that she and Abram can still have a child if Abram sleeps with her handmaid Hagar. Sarai tells this to Abram and he listens to her – he goes along with this plan. It doesn’t say that Abram protested, expressed any opinions, struggled, nothing. It just says that Abram listened to his wife.

So Abram goes and sleeps with this other girl and gets her pregnant. Once his wife Sarai notices that Hagar is pregnant (which must have taken some time, it couldn’t have been immediate) she also noticed a change in Hagar. Hagar started looking down on Sarai and treating her poorly. Hagar was disrespecting the chain of command and that made Sarai angry.

Sarai went to Abram and told him how she felt and Abram was like “look this is your servant, handle it” so Sarai was SO mean to Hagar that Hagar ran away.

Upset, pregnant, probably lacking resources and scared, Hagar went off into the wilderness. An angel came to the wilderness looking for Hagar and began to talk to her about her situation. The angel asked her a very important question, ” where are you coming from and where are you going?” Once the angel heard her out, Hagar was given a blessing saying that she would have a multitude of offspring, but that her son would be a wild and crazy guy. The angel told Hagar to name her son Ishmael which means God hears. Then the angel instructed Hagar to go back to Sarai and submit to her.

Hagar called that place in the wilderness Beer-lahai-roi, meaning the well of the God who sees me, because God saw her in her place of affliction. She went back to Abram and Sarai and gave birth to Ishmael when Abram was 86 years old.

For me, this story touches a place deep in my soul. That place that is waiting for a promise that doesn’t seem to come. The promise that keeps getting told to me, the one I have heard many times and am waiting in anticipation, but I see nothing in my life that points to this promise coming true. Like Abram and Sarai, I have my doubts and sometimes I come up with my own plans to “help” God with His promise, but that never seems to work out. The amazing thing is that the promise is still a promise. God’s word for my life doesn’t change just because I can’t be patient. Abram and Sarai didn’t lose out on their promise just because they tried to figure out their own way of doing things, they just had some added complications to their blessing.

I also greatly appreciate how God dealt with Hagar. She wasn’t trying to mess up anyone’s blessings, but when she got blessed when someone else didn’t, she got a little arrogant. She treated someone she served poorly because she thought she was better than her. That led to some consequences and Sarai treated her poorly as a result. I don’t know what kind of relationship they had before, but even if it was just cordial and professional, that relationship was now broken and both sides were hurt.

Being extremely hurt, Hagar ran away, but God met her in that broken and lonely place and sent someone to talk with and listen to her. I love the question that the angel asks, “where have you come from and where are you going?” It’s a great self reflection question about where we’re at and what led us to get to this place and how are we going to get out of it. A lot of times brokenness, anger, mistakes and sin have caused us to run away to the wilderness, but God sees us and meets us in these lonely places. He will even bless us in our mess, but then He instructs us to turn back to that broken place and return with a different attitude.

Now I imagine that it was extremely hard for Hagar to go back to a broken relationship and submit. I bet it was extremely hard to go back to someone who treated her so harshly and stay in that place and not have content in her heart. I bet it was equally hard for Sarai to accept Hagar back into her presence after she treated her poorly and then seeing Hagar run away, but that’s the beauty of God. He calls us back to the broken places so the His glory can shine.

Now the text doesn’t say that Sarai welcomed Hagar back with open arms, but it also doesn’t say she backhanded her upon arrival. I imagine there was some awkwardness as they both tried to navigate the broken relationship, but I love that God sent Hagar back for the chance to make things right.

Be encouraged, God is the God who sees us. He will keep His promises to us and even if we mess up along the way, he will give us another chance to make things right. He is the God of many chances, so even if you are currently in the wilderness, if you were hurt, if you did the hurting, if you have doubt, if you messed up something so bad that you don’t think it can ever be fixed, know that God hears you and he will give you another chance to go back and try again.

The Universal Language of Confusion

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Genesis chapter 11 opens with the building of a great city, Babel. Everyone spoke one language and worked together to build a great city with a giant tower that would reach to the heavens and place them on the same level as God. They wanted to make a name for themselves, they wanted to be famous, but God was not having this. He came down to see the tower (meaning that it didn’t reach the heavens) and was displeased. Seeing what man was capable of (both good and evil), He made them all speak different languages so it would be harder for them to work together.

Have you ever been working on something for your own glory and come up against a brick wall? I know I have. Almost every time I lose sight of God’s plans for me and I start working on my own plans for wealth or success, something seems to get in the way and my plans go down in flames. In the moment I am very frustrated and disappointed, but when I take a step back, I see how the things I have achieved in life and the path that God has me on are far better than the plans I made for myself.

After the story of the great city destroyed by language barriers, chapter 11 continues the genealogy account showing us the family lines from Noah to Abram (later Abraham, the father of Israel). This is a set up to show how the Israelites came from the lineage of Noah, originating back to Adam in the Garden. It’s a precurser to the story that is to come.

It’s easy to skip over the names and generations listed in this chapter (or any other one) because it’s not action packed and doesn’t always hold our attention, but can you imagine how crazy our lives would be if it was non-stop action? You would be praying for a break and you might miss some important information along the way. All of this is leading to the story that God wants us to tell. The story of His people. The story of your people. The story of you.

Be encouraged, your story has just begun and yet there are generations before you who have lived life, shared their wisdom and prepared the way for you to live the life God designed especially for you.

Origin of the Nations

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Genesis chapter 10 is a look into how the Earth was repopulated after the Flood. Through the sons of Noah, we see 70 different nations emerge spreading all across the Earth. From the East to the West, from the Amorites to the Philistines and all the nations in between, the Earth once again has been populated. With that, we also see that God is the God of all people.

From Noah’s descendants, we see that even the nations that later went on to battle and become enemies of the Israelites came from the same blood line. And to go back even further, before Noah, all of humanity originated from Adam and Eve. This genealogy account further shows that.

We also see that life went on even after Noah’s missteps and Ham’s poor judgement. God did not wipe out their family line, in fact He even allowed for great people to come from their family line like Nimrod the great hunter and eventually Abraham the father of many nations.

What I particularly like about this chapter is that we are all related. We all came from the same family line, under the same God, and although we have branched out and have our own languages and values, our origin story is the same. We have great people in our family line and some not so great people. Everyone is human, we all make mistakes, some people are amazing and some are amazingly horrible, but we all bleed the same blood.

Be encouraged, for you come from a great family tree that was designed by the Creator Himself! This is just the beginning. This is your origin story!

Rainbow Promise and a Not So Different Land

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In Genesis chapter 9, we see that Noah and his family have left the ark and God has blessed them and told them to go forth and multiply, just as He told Adam and Eve in the garden. The Earth had been wiped clean of all humanity and it was Noah’s sons who were to repopulate. In addition to this, God commands mankind to look after the Earth, all the animals, He allows them to eat the animals now as long as they drain the blood from the animals (no drinking blood and do not torture the animals, kill them humanely), and lastly God says that anyone who murders someone is to be killed. He ends His instructions by retelling Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply.

After He gives instructions, God makes a promise that he will never take out the whole Earth again by a flood. To show a sign of his promise, He put a rainbow in the sky. What comfort that must have been to these lone survivors of the great flood. I wonder how many times they saw rain and though the flood might happen again, but then saw the rainbow and were relieved by God’s promise.

As with most things in life, after an amazing life changing moment or a great travesty, life went back to normal and people reverted back to known behaviors. Noah planted a vineyard and got drunk. It doesn’t say why this happened or how Noah was feeling or what led him to this, it just says that he got drunk and laid uncovered (naked) in his tent. This was not how a great man, the only man who found favor with God in wicked times, was supposed to act. He was supposed to be great all the time, and yet we see his humanness. We see him act differently than we expect. Despite the excuse or the reason, we only see the action.

Now does this mean that God took away His promise from Noah or that He was mad and punished Noah? No, in fact the text doesn’t make any mention to God’s feelings on this situation. Additionally, we still see rainbows in the sky to this day and are reminded of God’s promise. What we do see are consequences and an aftermath that happens as a result of Noah’s actions though.

We are told that Noah’s youngest son sees his nakedness and tells his brothers. The brothers cover their father with a garment and never see the nakedness of their father. After Noah wakes up, he learns what happened and curses (Noah curses, not God) his youngest son for what he did.

Now there is a lot of speculation on what actually happened and why it was so bad. Here’s what I know. Noah’s youngest son saw something and did nothing about it except to tell others. The older boys covered their father and didn’t look. It could be as simple as that. Nakedness implies a level of vulnerability and especially if Noah was in a drunken state, he was not himself and was probably even more vulnerable than normal. The youngest son did not protect this vulnerability, but the older ones did without asking for specifics or digging into the matter. They did not need to see what state their father was in, they just covered him.

That is what family is supposed to do. When you are at your lowest point, when you have misstepped, when you have found yourself in a vulnerable place, family is there to cover you no questions asked. Family might mean different things to everyone. It could be your family of origin, your close friends, or other believers, but family are those you are familiar with that surround you. They won’t be perfect all the time, but they will cover you and you need to cover them too.

Be encouraged, we have all survived the floods of life, we see the rainbow promise in the sky that God won’t wipe out His creation, and your family (even the family you have in believers just reading this post) will cover you and pray for you. You were made in God’s image and are fearfully and wonderfully made and there is nothing you can do to make God forget His promise or His people. Be blessed.

Building a Boat

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In Genesis chapter 6, we see that the Earth is becoming a popular place and the human race is quickly multiplying. While this is happening and God watches as the world grows and changes, He decides to limit human life to 125 years. While that is still a long life span for us, compared to the people of the previous chapter who lived for hundreds of years, 125 seems quite young. We are also told that during this time, there were giants and there were mighty men, or heroes.

During this time, God saw that the heart of man overall was wicked, evil, and it hurt His heart. Have you ever looked at someone you cared for greatly only to see them making poor choices and acting out of sorts? That hurts in a place so deep, it makes you want to turn away from them rather than to look and see that pain day in and day out. The same pain, I imagine, plagued God and He decided to destroy the Earth rather than to watch the wicked prevail.

But God looked at Noah and only saw love. He was moved to act in mercy for the one who found grace in His eyes. And so, God spoke to Noah and told him what His plan was. He was going to destroy the Earth with a flood, but He was going to give Noah and his family a way out by allowing them to build an ark for shelter from the flood.

God gave them a specific plan on how to build the ark and who should go in it. Noah and his family was to be saved along with 2 of every living creature on the Earth, except the Unicorns… just kidding! But you’ll have to read it for yourself to know for sure.

Now wouldn’t it be great if God just gave us specific plans for our lives? But here’s the thing, we have to be obedient in that. Noah knew God, walked with God, found favor with God, listened to God and when he was told to build an ark, he did so.

There is a funny joke that goes something like this… A man finds himself on the roof of his house staring at the water that is rising all around him during a storm. Another man in a boat comes by and say “Hey, this is a really bad storm, come with me on my boat and I will take you to safety.” The man on the roof says, “No, no. I’m okay, God will save me.” So the boat goes away and the water begins to rise. A while later a man on a jet ski comes by and says, “Hey, this is a really bad storm, come with me on my jet ski and I will take you to safety.” The man on the roof says, “No, no. I’m okay, God will save me.” So the jet ski goes away and the storm rages on. A long while later, a helicopter comes by and over a mega phone says, “Sir, you need to come with us, you won’t survive on the roof.” The man on the roof says, “No, no. I’m okay, God will save me.” And then, he dies.

The man goes up to Heaven and standing before God he says, “God, I was patient and waited for you to save me, but you never came. Why did you let me die?” and God says, “I sent you a boat, a jet ski and a helicopter. Why didn’t you let me save you?”

The moral of that story is that sometimes God sends you a boat and sometimes He tells you to build it. Either way, don’t allow yourself to drown in your inability to move.

The Family Tree

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Chapter 5 of Genesis is all about family ties and genealogy. On the surface, it is a list of names and ages that seems boring and easy to skip over. Who cares if so-and-so’s great-grandfather lived to be 900 and had a wooden leg, where is the action? The drama? Where is the storyline?

In a society that craves more and more action and suspense, more “realistic” or gruesome depictions of violence and needs a new image on screen every 3-5 seconds or so, it can be difficult to find the importance in the seemingly mundane. Occasionally, you’ll find a rare long shot in a movie that goes on for a bit, but chances are you squirm in your seat if there’s not a lot of action going on in that scene. Similarly, unless you are reading a tweet that is 140 characters or less, longer written material has a hard time keeping people’s attention span these days. I’m here to say that sometimes when you skip over the “boring parts”, you can miss some important plot points.

In the first few lines of the text, we are reminded that humans were created in God’s image and that he created male and female with no distinction of inequality amongst the sexes. The following verses tell us that the descendants of Adam lived very long lives, but it does not give us a great description of their lives or achievements aside from their ages. There are a few exceptions we will get to, but it is something to think about that these people were important enough to mention in the Bible, but that none of their achievements or hobbies or anything really about them was mentioned.

I think for many of us, that is our fear. That we will die “having accomplished nothing”. That no one will remember us. There is one notable man in this text though that had more written about him that the others. Enoch.

Enoch is the only one in this chapter that is said to have walked with God. And as a result, Enoch did not die. It says that God took him. He got the red carpet treatment and walked with God straight into heaven. Now that is a notable achievement! And it doesn’t even seem that Enoch was trying to accomplish anything, or that his goal was to get into heaven. Enoch just did what he regularly did, walked with God.

After Enoch, we meet Methuselah who is the oldest man in the text at age 969. It seems that God was patient with mankind, allowing their lifespans to be long as they figured out how to function on Earth. Many times throughout history, we see people longing for and trying to accomplish immortality. My question is why? Even this man who lived for almost 1,000 years is only mentioned because he lived, had a child that continued the blood line and then died.

In comparison to Enoch, I think there is a lesson to learn here. It is not the number of years you have lived on this Earth that are important, but what you have done with the years you have been given. The quality of life, of what you have chosen to do with you life, is what is important.

The last part of the text leads us to a man named Noah. Now, we will get more into Noah’s story in a later chapter, but it is good to note Noah’s significance here. Noah is the only person in this chapter to have the meaning of his name explained. Verse 29 says, “And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.” Noah’s name sounds similar to the Hebrew word for rest, and so it seems that his father believed that Noah would come and give the people rest from the curse of Adam (back in chapter 3 of Genesis).

All of that being said, just remember that there is significance in everything, even the chapters in your life that seem boring or unimportant. Sometimes those boring chapters can be a set up for the adventure that is yet to come!

M for Murder

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Genesis chapter 4 is the first chapter that begins outside of the Garden. In chapter 3, we saw man disobey God and be dealt the consequence of having to leave the Garden, but with a promise – that woman would birth a son who would crush the serpent under foot. In the first verse of chapter 4, we see that Eve bars a son named Cain and she thanks the Lord for him. She also gives birth to a son named Abel. For 2 adults who never had a childhood, having 2 boys must have been challenging.

Now the text let’s us know that these sons were different from one another. The first born, Cain, tilled the ground. Basically, he grew crops from the ground. And Abel was a shepherd, he had to care for animals. Aside from that, their jobs, they had the same upbringing, the same parents, the same environment, the same everything.

After some time, each boy brought an offering to God. Cain brought some of the fruit that he had grown and Abel brought the first of his flock as an offering. Now it doesn’t say why, but God had regard for Abel’s offering and not Cain’s. So Cain got angry.

It was probably jealousy and anger and a bunch of complicated emotions that Cain didn’t know how to deal with. Cain, it would seem, felt less than because God had no regard for his offering. I have been in those positions before where you see other people getting the praise or the rewards that you want and you feel less than. Sometimes that jealousy and anger drives you to great lengths to get that which you desire. Now desire in itself isn’t always bad, but the lengths to which you go to achieve it is usually where we get ourselves into trouble. For Cain, it drove him to kill his brother.

Before that happened, God spoke with Cain. He asked him why he was angry and tried to give him some advice. Did Cain listen? No. He was consumed by his anger at that point. So many times when we are angry, we can’t hear the voice of reason around us. We just want to be right, or to have things be what we deem as “fair”, or just generally want things to go our way. To have humility and say, I was wrong, let me try again could stop this angry train from going off the tracks, but too many times that’s not the path we seek.

So Cain calls his brother out into the field and kills him.

Cain becomes the first murderer and has to deal with his own guilt and the consequences. Initially when God asks Cain where Abel is, Cain tries to say “I don’t know, am I in charge of him”? But God calls him out and tells Cain that He knows what he did. So he tells Cain that he is going to be cursed and have to wander the Earth as a fugitive. Cain fears for his life, but the Lord marks him and tells him that if anyone kills him, they will be punished 7 times worse. And God puts a mark on Cain so everyone will know. Then Cain leaves the presence of God.

Now the interesting thing to me is that the text says that Cain left the presence of the Lord. I don’t recall in the previous verses God saying that Cain couldn’t be with God anymore or talk to him or anything, it just said that he was going to be a wanderer. Isn’t that usually what happens though? We do something wrong, we receive the consequences and then we run away from God. What would have happened if Cain had said that he messed up, that he sinned, that he was sorry and that he didn’t want to leave God’s side. What would have happened if he had asked God for help to become a better person?

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. The rest of the chapter tells us of the family tree of Cain and of the new family tree of Adam and Eve. It shows us that life goes on. It doesn’t mean that Adam and Eve weren’t still grieving the loss of Abel or weren’t still mad at Cain. It just means that they didn’t let those feeling paralyze them in their tracks.

Sometimes we get so down on ourselves that it drives us to inaction. But here’s the thing, life goes on. Cain had to deal with the consequences of his sin, but he also birthed a city and was a father to those that have livestock, that play music, that are blacksmiths. Even when we feel at our worst, we can still produce good things.