Psalm 5

Tonight I found myself reading in Psalms. I read several before I got to Psalm 5. I found myself equally enjoying it and hurting over it. The parts that I identified with for myself were enjoyable but the parts where I thought of others that fit the descriptions in the verses made me hurt.

I actually found myself identifying with this particular Psalm for several reasons. In one way I identified with it for myself.

Give ear to my words, O Lord;
    consider my groaning.

I have been in prayer a lot lately. Hoping the Lord would hear and grant my petitions. I’ve found myself begging Him for the outcome I pray for. I’ve heard of those that essentially walk up to the Lord, tell them what they want or need and know that He will hear their requests. I can’t do that. There’s just something in me that keeps me from ever demanding anything of my Lord. So instead I beg Him.

² Give attention to the sound of my cry,
    my King and my God,
    for to you do I pray.

This is more in keeping with the way I approach my Lord. Not all that long ago my daughter asked me, as I spoke of someone else, if they say God the same way I do. I had no idea what she was talking about and so I questioned her. She told me that I say it… ‘like this, God’…and she said God with a reverence I knew she didn’t feel and that in that moment I knew didn’t come close to the way I said God. I could identify with verse two…Give attention to the sound of my cry…because I’ve been crying out in prayer to Him, begging Him for what I ask, and knowing that His will is going to prevail no matter how much I beg and still I beg because I can’t do anything else.

In the second part of that verse I find myself identifying with the way I imagine the Psalmist may have said…my King and my God…with a deep reverence. I imagine He knew full well who he was approaching and that he may have said those words with a inflection that fully acknowledge with the tone of his voice exactly Who it was that he was addressing.

³ O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
    in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you^[a] and watch.

And then came the verses that made me hurt…

⁴ For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
    evil may not dwell with you.

Verse four didn’t hold much pain, it just reminded me of how my Lord feels about wickedness, evilness. But now as I think about it…and I’m not trying to put anything into Scripture that isn’t there…but I think of it just a little different than I did as I read it. …evil may not dwell with you… I don’t know if that part is saying that those that practice evilness cannot know the Lord, cannot be saved, but for me…as I write this…that is what I think of. It reminds me that the wicked cannot dwell with, abide in, Christ.

⁵ The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
    you hate all evildoers.

This was where I began to think of who these verses were speaking of. What started out as something I could identify with for my own sake turned into something I saw painfully, identified with when I’d rather not have, because of who it represented. Evildoers are all those that aren’t in Christ, even when our human hearts don’t want to think of them as evildoers.

⁶ You destroy those who speak lies;

This part at least narrowed the field a little. Here it speaks specifically of those that lie. But then I think of just how many have told lies. Of the lies I, myself have spoken in my life. Oh how I must have hurt my Lord with every one of them.

    the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

For a God that so many claim is love and only love, this Psalm alone uses some pretty strong words that show otherwise…abhors…hate…destroy. And that’s just so far.

⁷ But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,
    will enter your house.

I will enter His house through His love even though I did nothing to deserve it, even though if it hadn’t been for the mercy He chose to show me I would be just like those that he declares His hate for, just like those He abhors, just like those He will destroy.

I will bow down toward your holy temple
    in the fear of you.
⁸ Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
    because of my enemies;
    make your way straight before me.

Oh, how I identify with that. I can’t count the number of times I have prayed that He would keep me on the narrow path. I can’t count the number of times I said that I wished He would just put me where He wants me and when I strayed from that place that He’d reach down, pick me up, and put me back where He wanted me.

I’ve had family members tell me to be very careful saying that because I wouldn’t really want Him to do that but what they didn’t understand was that I very much did want Him to do just that.

⁹ For there is no truth in their mouth;
    their inmost self is destruction;

Again I am reminded of who they are. I’m reminded of those that I know that have destroyed themselves through the hardening of their hearts, through the denial of the God that Scripture says they know exist but suppress the knowledge of. I know the Lord has set their path and where they are may be where they stay for all their earthly life of the Lord may choose to save them when the time is right for them but right now…I see the destruction that their own hearts have caused for them, a destruction they will not acknowledge.

their throat is an open grave;
    they flatter with their tongue.
¹⁰ Make them bear their guilt, O God;
    let them fall by their own counsels;
because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,
    for they have rebelled against you.

As I read that I wonder how they could have said such a thing. When I read it I was reminded of those I love that fall into that category and how much I pray for their salvation and here the Psalmist is asking the Lord to cast them out.

¹¹ But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;

let them ever sing for joy,

There is great rejoicing in knowing that I belong to Christ.

and spread your protection over them,
    that those who love your name may exult in you.
¹² For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
    you cover him with favor as with a shield.

And there’s guilt in that part. While I know the difference between those that belong to Christ and those that don’t…I also know that I didn’t choose Christ, He chose me, and I know that those that are never saved are left in their wickedness because the Lord left them there.

 

Christ first news

I recently accompanied my husband to an appointment where we had to sit in the waiting room for quite some time. While we were there a man sitting a few seats down from us left a newspaper. Looking for something to pass the time my husband and I picked up the paper and flipped through it.

I’ve never been a big fan of the news in any form. I remember my grandparents watching it faithfully every night at five and ten. You could set your clock by them and their news programs. I found it boring then, I find it disheartening now.

As I flipped through the pages of that newspaper I found nothing with enough value in the headline to make me pause and read the article. I do the same thing with online news sources although I do usually find one or two headlines intriguing but it takes something extraordinary to get me to actually read the article.

After our time in the waiting room was over I found myself thinking of that newspaper, found myself wondering how much more interesting I might have found it if another regenerated Christian had written it.

From time to time I do an internet search for reformed blogs. I type in words like…reformed…regenerated…monergist…trying to find anything that comes close to the kind of blog posts I write. Everytime I come up with the same results. Nothing.

There are some reformed blogs out there, some of which I read, but I can’t seem to find anything even close to the kind of posts I write. Which is okay but I do still look occasionally. Just in case.

As I thought about that newspaper I wondered what it would be like if it were put out by a reformed Christian, by someone regenerated, by someone writing articles to share Christ and their beliefs in Him and nothing else. What would it be like to have the news, any kind of news, stories would be fine, delivered with no agenda but Christ’s?

There are online sources for the news that are delivered by Christians. News where world happenings are weighed against the Bible. I do enjoy reading a few of those from time to time but that isn’t exactly what I’m thinking of.

Years ago I used to make a family newsletter for all the descendants of my great grandparents. I included marriages, births, deaths, and happenings in someone’s life…if it happened in the family and I knew of it there was a chance it would show up in my newsletter. I didn’t just stick to family members from now but wrote about what I knew of those long gone. It was a newsletter of news updates, history, current events, life…

That was the kind of newspaper I was thinking of as I wondered what would it be like to hold that kind of newspaper in my hand, to be able to read that kind of news. What would it be like to have a newspaper that reported news from a Christ first perspective? For me…I wouldn’t care if it was current events or Christians that were featured, Scripture verses or historical events. Just to have a place to read that reported everything by looking at Christ first.

What was it like for Adam and Eve?

I’ve made Adam and Eve the focus of my last couple of posts. I chose to focus on each one separately because I wanted to see them as individuals. To imagine what life might have been like for Adam, for Eve, but there came a point in each of their lives where they were no longer individuals but a whole. They were no longer two people but one. They were married. Their lives were no longer theirs alone but theirs together.

I had planned to follow Eve’s life all the way through the exile from the garden of Eden but as I wrote I discovered that I couldn’t do that because I had reached a spot where Eve’s life so entwined with Adams that she wasn’t her anymore but Adam’s wife. Her life was his, and his was hers. There was no more separating them. To finish their story I had to combine it. And so I chose to end Eve’s story and begin another one with Adam and Eve together.

Now I must ask…

What was it like for Adam and Eve? What was it like to experience those first moments together? I remember well the early days of getting to know my husband. I remember the excitement of seeing a note from him, the joy of talking to him. I remember wanting to know so much about him but always finding more to learn.

Did Adam and Eve feel that way about each other?

I remember, too, the happiness of those early days of marriage. The need to constantly be near my husband…a need I still have. I remember how everything seemed so different, better, simply because he was there. I also remember the changes that I went through as I adjusted to marriage. Then figuring out life as a wife, finding out how I fit in my marriage.

Did Adam and Eve go through that?

They had no former life to leave behind, no family to say goodbye to, no home to give up, no connections to sever. They didn’t have to adjust to a new home because all of life was new to them.

What was it like for them to discover all of life together? What was it like for them to be married in a place where there were no other people, no one with expectations, no society telling them that over 50% of marriages end in divorce. They didn’t even have a Bible to tell them what was expected.

Instead they had each other.

And God.

They couldn’t call their mother, brother, or dad when they had a question. They couldn’t cry on their sister’s shoulder or email a friend when they were unsure of each other. They had only each other and God.

What was that like?

What would it be like to be taken from everything and placed in a natural environment that provided for your every need with nothing but your spouse?

When I wrote about Eve I wrote about how in times past husbands and wives needed each other in ways they don’t today. But how much would you need each other if your spouse was all you had? How much would you cling to them? How much would you quickly let go of all the trivial things that so many couples let come between them today?

I have family, friends, and all the other entrapments that come with life in today’s fallen world and yet…I cling to my husband. I hold tight to him. I get great pleasure in just being near him.

Did Eve feel that way? Did Adam feel that way toward Eve?

Sometimes I simply marvel that I am here and that I’m married to my husband. It’s a moment of thanksgiving, a moment of remembering all over again how blessed I was to become his wife.

Did Adam and Eve feel that way?

Part of getting to know my husband was falling in love with him. But from our first moment of discovering the other existed there was just something there between us. There was a connection. I couldn’t have not loved him. It was as if he was a part of me even when I barely knew him.

Was it that way for Adam and Eve?

Did they connect from the beginning? Did they love each other the moment they saw each other? Or did it take time? Did the love grow gradually as they got to know each other?

Did they fall into marriage naturally, from the beginning, or did they take time to get to know one another?

When I was a child one of my family’s favorite movies was about a couple of kids stranded on an island. As those kids grew into teenagers they began to see the other not as a playmate but as a spouse. They slowly grew into the physical side of marriage. There was no one there to tell them what they were supposed to think or feel about the other. No one there to tell them when a relationship became a marriage. No one to perform a wedding. They simply grew into the marriage naturally. It happened slowly, gradually.

Was that what it was like for Adam and Eve?

They must have spent many an hour walking through the garden. Did they walk hand in hand, talking about the plants and animals around them? Did they play like kids, tossing seed pods at each other, rolling in the grass, playing in the sand? Did they long for a way to capture those special moments or were they content to simply be there in that moment?

When did those ideal moments become tainted with temptation? Was temptation there before the serpent spoke to Eve? Had she thought about the forbidden fruit before or was she happy to have all the other plants and foods and leave that one alone?

In our woods we have wild berries, nuts, and trees that produce edible parts. I find joy in finding and picking those edible foods straight from the woods. I often wish I had more knowledge on which plants are edible. I would gladly gather more of the wild edibles around us if I knew which ones they were. There are some things that I know to leave alone though. I just assume all mushrooms are poisonous because for me they aren’t worth the risk. I know poison ivy is poisonous so I have no desire to go anywhere near it or to eat the berries it produces.

Did Adam and Eve see the tree of knowledge that way? Or were they tempted by the fruits from time to time?

How did Adam and Eve see God? He came and walked with them, talked with them. Did He instruct them often? Did He tell them what was expected of them? Did He reprimand them? Punish them? Did they see Him as a parent?

How did Eve feel when the serpent completely disregarded everything God had told her? Was she disappointed in God? Did she feel, as many children do, a sense of confusion at discovering her ‘parent’ hadn’t been truthful with her?

We know that the death God spoke of was Spiritual death but did Eve know that? The serpent told her she would not die if she ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. That was in direct opposition to what she had been told, what she’d been taught.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You1 shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:1-5

How did she feel upon discovering that she could eat the fruit? What did it taste like?

Scripture tells us…

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,2 she took of its fruit and ate…Genesis 3:6

            We’re given no details on what the fruit tasted like. She took of its fruit and ate…that’s all we’re told. Was it sweet? Juicy? Bitter? Did she get her fill with one fruit or did she eat several, or many? After she ate, she…and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. So once she’d eaten her fill she picked some more and gave it to her husband.

            What did Adam think about eating the fruit? Did he know what it was when Eve handed it to him? Did she have to convince him to try it?

            There are foods that I like that my husband doesn’t. Some of those foods he won’t even touch. Some of them make him shudder. If I offered him one of those foods he wouldn’t take it. Did Adam refuse to eat the fruit the first time Eve offered it? Or did he accept it immediately and enjoy it, trusting that what she gave him was okay? Or did he take it knowing it was forbidden but wanting to please his wife?

            I have eaten things I had no interest in eating simply to please my husband. I knew it was something he wanted to share with me so I ate it with him. Was that what Adam did? Did he think as he ate it that he shouldn’t be doing it? Did he wonder if he should correct Eve for eating it and feeding it to him or did he just go along?

            What was it like for them when they ate the forbidden fruit?

7 Then the eyes of both were opened…

I can’t even imagine eating something that would give me knowledge with the simple eating of it. There are foods that we learn from. It doesn’t take a person more than one bite to discover a hot pepper is hot. It doesn’t take more than one bite of sugar to discover it’s sweet. But they don’t impart wisdom. They don’t take us from what we knew to all of a sudden knowing so much more.

And how much did they learn? How much wisdom was given to them with the eating of the fruit? We know that they learned that they were naked. As a result they learned that they shouldn’t be naked. Their actions prove that…

 …and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Did they know they were in disobedience to God? They hid from Him but they did it because they were naked. Did they also know that they had disobeyed Him? Did they learn that they had when they ate the fruit or would they have already known because they knew that they weren’t supposed to eat it? Or did they know it at all?

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

About a month ago my daughter came in to tell on her brother. My son, knowing he was going to get in trouble, hid around the side of the house. He was easy to find, and his expression clearly told why he was hiding. He knew he had done wrong, knew he was about to get into trouble for what he did, and so he hid.

Did Adam and Eve have the same feelings my son had that day? Were they hopeful that they wouldn’t get in trouble but afraid that they would? Did they look at God the way my son looked at me, with those sad eyes full of remorse and hope?

11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Here, God asks them the same kind of question I find myself asking my children often…did you do this? And what response did He get? The same kind parents get. The answer that shifts the blame to someone else.

 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Adam spoke the truth there but I can’t wondering if he wasn’t trying to shift the blame from himself to Eve. Did he say what he did simply to admit the truth of what happened or was he trying to keep himself out of trouble by laying the blame on Eve? Children will often justify their behaviors by saying ‘he did ____________ so I did this’ or ‘he/she’ made me’ or some other thing that they hope will keep them out of trouble. And sometimes it does.

Recently my son hit my daughter because she refused to move when he was trying to clean a certain area. Because my daughter wouldn’t move my son, out of frustration, hit her. When I asked my son why he had hit his sister he answered by telling me that he was trying to clean and she wouldn’t move. Hours later as I relayed the story to my husband, my husband told me that was almost justified. It was and yet our son’s actions violated the ‘do not hit girls’ rule.

Was Adam’s reply given much the way my son tried to justify hitting his sister? …the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate… She did this, so I did that. Or was Adam simply relaying the truth of what happened? Did Adam hope to shift the blame from himself to Eve? Or was he simply explaining?

What did Adam feel when God called out to him? And it was Adam that God called to.

⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

God didn’t call to the woman, it wasn’t Eve He was looking for. Before God ever created Adam and Eve, He knew what was going to happen. He knew where Adam was, knew why he was hiding, before he called out to him. Knowing that Eve had been the one to eat the fruit first, it was still Adam he was looking for. It was Adam that he questioned…

He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

God already knew the answer. Long before He asked the question, He knew the answer. Not only did He ask it anyway but He asked it of Adam. Knowing that Eve had been the one to disobey first, knowing that she had fed the fruit to Adam, God still asked Adam. He asked for an accounting from the man, not the woman.

Why?

Was it because the husband is supposed to lead his wife? Did Adam know that? Adam and Eve hadn’t been given the instructions that believing husbands and wives have today. Did Adam know that he was to lead his wife?

I recently told one of my daughters that as a big sister her actions set an example for the younger children. How she acts will in some way affect how they do. She is, without being aware of it, leading the younger ones. My husband sets examples for me by his actions. He leads me without saying anything. It is just there. His actions affect me, affect how I act and think and react. Did Adam know when he accepted the fruit that he was, by the simple act of eating something forbidden, leading his wife?

Was that why God called out to Adam instead of Eve?

We can’t know, Scripture doesn’t tell us. Whatever reason God chose to call out to Adam instead of Eve, Adam’s response gives us an idea of how he was feeling…

And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

He heard God call out and he was afraid. That sounds very much like my son they day he went and hid because he knew he was about to get into trouble. Whether or not Adam knew he had done wrong he knew he was naked and he was afraid. He must have known he was going to have to answer to God for something.

Then God questioned Adam… He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”  It was Adam that he questioned, Adam that He essentially said ‘tell me what happened’. After Adam replied…¹² The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate…only then did God question Eve…¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?”

How did Eve feel when God turned His attention from Adam to her? Up to that point God had been speaking to Adam, questioning him. How did she feel when the focus, the blame, fell on her? Like Adam she replied in truth…The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”…but like Adam it’s possible that in truth she also attempted to shift the blame. The serpent deceived me…she didn’t merely say I ate the fruit, she laid the blame on the serpent…the serpent deceived me. Was that an attempt to shift the blame from herself? Or was she merely stating how it happened?

Did she fear what God would do as she admitted her actions? Did she fear the death God had said would come?

What was it like for Adam, for Eve, to stand before God knowing they had disobeyed Him? Knowing they had knowledge that they had been forbidden to obtain. Were they afraid? Did they wish they could hide again? Were their legs trembling? Did their hands shake? Did they want to beg him to forgive them for doing wrong?

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for^[f] your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”

            God punished the serpent first then Eve. What thoughts went through Adam’s head as he listened to God punish his wife? Did he long to take her punishment on himself? Did he want to explain again why she made the choice she did, to justify her actions, so that maybe God would change his mind about the punishment to be delivered? Did he want to beg God to go easy on her?

            Did Eve understand what God meant when he spoke of bringing forth children in pain? Did she even know what children were? And what of her desire being for her husband? Did she see that as a good thing or bad? What did she think when God said her husband would rule over her?

            What did Adam think as God told her that? If he didn’t know it was his place to lead his wife, did he figure it out then? Did he already know that being the husband came with responsibilities toward Eve or did he learn that when God told Eve that her husband would rule over her?

            What did Adam think as God turned to him? Did he think ‘here it comes’ or did he assume that the serpent and Eve would take all the punishment for the wrongdoing? What was he thinking, feeling, as God handed out his punishment?

¹⁷ And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

God didn’t spare Eve because she was tempted by the serpent and He didn’t spare Adam because Eve was the one that gave him the fruit. Each was punished for their part in the sin. They disobeyed God. It didn’t matter how it came to happen, the fact that it happened was all it took for God to punish them.

How did Adam and Eve feel after the punishment was handed out? It was a far cry from the death they had been told would come. But the punishment wasn’t over yet. Did they stand there thinking it was while God clothed them?

 ²¹ And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Did they think that was easy? God didn’t do to us what He said he would? Did they consider the fact that he was clothing them the end of the punishment. Did they feel that he was happy with them again and that no further punishment was coming?

How surprised were they when…

²² Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man...

What did Adam and Eve think, feel, when God kicked them out of the Garden? Were they surprised? Hurt? Angry? Did they wonder what they would do and where they would go? Did they hurt for the loss of their home? Did they wonder around looking for somewhere that might be like the garden they had known? Did they try to get back into the garden?

What was it like for Adam and Eve?

 

 

 

What was it like for Eve?

In my last post I wrote about Adam and what life might have been like for him. Today my thoughts have turned to Eve. As a woman I can identify a little better with Eve than with Adam. When I questioned what it might have been like for Adam on the day he was presented with a wife I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he might have felt and thought…or maybe imagine is all I could do. I can imagine but my imagination takes me into places that Adam may not have gone. I’m in the same place with Eve but the fact that she’s a woman gives me, at least the illusion, that I might understand how she thought and felt just a little bit better than I did with Adam.

Adam was made outside the Garden of Eden and placed in it later.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and wall the host of them. 2 And xon the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

5 When no bush of the field1 was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put  the man whom he had formed.  Genesis 2:1-8

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2:15

Eve was created inside the garden of Eden after it was made and Adam was already there.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Genesis 2:21-22

The same questions come to mind when I think of those first moments in Eve’s life that came to mind with Adam. What was it like to take that first breath? To look down and see hands and feet and know they belonged to her? To figure out how to move them? Could she walk immediately or did she have to learn how?

From verse seven…7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature…it seems that God named Adam man. Did Adam know that he was man as soon as he opened his eyes? When he took that first breath? When God talked to him the first time?

There’s no way to know when exactly Adam realized he was a man but Scripture tells us exactly when Eve would have found out she was a woman. When God brought her to Adam, Adam said…

23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Genesis 2:23

There Eve stood, probably marveling at all that was around her, getting her bearings, figuring out how to breathe and move, thoughts were most likely going through her head faster than she could process them. She was created somewhere in the garden. Scripture tells us that God brought her to Adam. Was she formed in sight of where Adam lay sleeping? Was Adam the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes? Or was she formed elsewhere and then brought to Adam when he woke up?

We know that God brought her to Adam but not from where. What was she thinking as she was led to Adam? Did she know who he was? Did she know how important he would be in her life?

I’ve talked with my daughters before about their future husbands. In those conversations from time to time it’s mentioned how nice it would be if our names were written across the forehead of our future spouse. If they were there would never be any guess work involved in whether or not the person standing in front of you was the one that you’re supposed to marry.

One of my daughters has asked more than once ‘how am I supposed to know if he’s the right one?’ A very good question. And one I only feel slightly qualified to answer. When I met my husband it was as if an invisible hand had control of everything. I couldn’t have not gotten involved with him if I’d wanted to. We knew each other less than two months when we married and had only been in each other’s presence eight days. One of my daughters says I was crazy for marrying that quick. What she doesn’t understand is that something…Someone…much bigger than me was in control of it all. From the first time I spoke with him there was just something there. It was a connection that I couldn’t have explained.

Did Eve feel that same sense of connection with Adam as she was taken to him. Did she know as she walked toward him that this man was her future?

I remember the first time I met my husband in person as I stood next to him I wondered if that was what it was like to look at your future. I now know that it was. With my husband there was just something there that was so much bigger than I was. It was a feeling. A connection. I was drawn to him in so many different ways. What I felt then is nearly impossible to put into words. Quite simply, I wasn’t in charge of any of it. The Lord was working things out between my husband and I. There is no other explanation for what I felt when I met him.

Did Eve feel that same way? Did she know that there before her stood the man that God had chosen to be hers? Did she know that this was ‘the right one?’ Of course for Eve there was no other option. She didn’t have to wonder if she was choosing the right one because she wasn’t choosing. She was basically gift wrapped and hand delivered. God took her to Adam. She was a gift that was given to her husband.

There is quite a bit of significance in that to me. Adam wasn’t given to her. Adam wasn’t brought to where Eve was. Adam wasn’t made for her. It was all Eve. She was made for Adam, brought to him, given to him.

What does that say about a wife’s place in her husband’s life?

Eve was the first wife. She experienced and lived in the first marriage there ever was. Did Eve know what it meant to be a wife? Did she know what her place in her husband’s life was? Did she know how important to him she was?

My sister and I have talked many times about some of the differences in marriages today verses those of the past. We’ve speculated on why the divorce rate is what it is today when in the past it was virtually nonexistent. I have no doubt that sin is the culprit. Sin and unregenerate people living out sin-filled lives. But sin existed when divorce was a rarity.

What’s the difference today?

My sister and I have talked of the differences in the way people lived in times past as opposed to the way they live today. Until about the 1950’s most women stayed home, they didn’t have jobs or careers. They got married, had babies, raised children, cooked, cleaned. That was the expected role.

My grandmother has talked to me a lot about what her life was like. When she was raising children it was hard for a woman to feed her kids if she wasn’t married. They didn’t have all the government assistance programs that exist today. Jobs for women were hard to come by and if she did work babysitters were hard to find. Plus, there was a social stigma on women that worked. It was seen as something that wasn’t done.

Women had their place and it wasn’t in the work force. In order to stay in that place they needed a husband to provide for them and their children. They needed someone to take care of them and the family. They needed a provider.

Men in those days didn’t cook or clean, they didn’t share the childrearing tasks. That was women’s work. If a man had children but no wife he had to juggle all those things plus work. A difficult thing to do in a time when daycare’s didn’t exist and men were seen as providers and not the parent doing the caretaking.

The further back in history you go the more you can clearly see the roles of men and women. They were defined. Society expected men to be a certain way and women to be a certain way. They expected marriage to be forever. It wasn’t something that was entered into lightly. When you said ‘I do’ there was no escape plan. Divorce has been an option since the Old Testament but for most of time it came with a stigma. It was socially unacceptable.

If that wasn’t enough to keep couples married the simple fact that they truly needed one another was. They both would have experienced difficulties living without each other. Life was simpler when you were married. I have no doubt there would have been exceptions to that but for the most part it held true. It was much easier on a man to come home to a hot meal and clean clothes after working in the fields all day than it was to come home and cook his own meal and wash his clothes. It was easier for a woman to care for her home and children when she wasn’t having to struggle to bring in the funds to support them. They needed each other.

How did Eve feel as she was presented to Adam? Did she know how much she would need him? I have no doubt that she needed him a great deal. Just imagine being the only two people in the world…how much would you need the other person, no matter who they were?

Did Eve know as she met Adam for the first time that he was her husband? Did she know what that meant? Did she understand that God made her just for him? She wasn’t made for any reason other than to be a helper to Adam. God didn’t say…let me make woman so she can have babies. He didn’t say…let me make woman so that she can work. He made woman because it wasn’t good that man should be alone.

How did Eve feel as she was basically handed over to Adam? Did she know why she had been made? Was she excited to start her life with this man that she was being given to? Unlike women today, and in the past, Eve went into her marriage with no outside influences, no preexisting ideas of what marriage should be. She had no ideas of what she should be or what she wanted in life. She went into marriage with a blank slate. Here was the man she was made for. This was her life.

No options.

God simply made her and delivered her to her husband.

How did she feel? In that moment what thoughts and feelings were going through her? Was she happy? Did she look forward to getting to know Adam? Was she afraid she might fail at the task she was given?

And when God gave her to Adam and Adam said…this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh... how did Eve feel? Here she was handed into her future by God and her husband said at last.

His response was that of a man that had been waiting for her and here she was. Finally. At last. His reply told her she was wanted. It told her Adam was glad to have her as his wife.

How did she feel to be greeted like that?

I know there are things my husband has said that have told me how much he wanted me as his wife. When he’s said things that tell me that it makes me feel loved, wanted, longed for, cherished. As if he had said…at last.

And I know how I feel when he says things like that. Is that how Eve felt? Did she know from the way he said…at last…that she was wanted and welcomed?

What was it like for Eve?

 

 

 

 

 

 

What was it like for Adam?

Years ago I got into genealogy. I researched my family’s history, went to cemetaries, talked to relatives, even put out a family newsletter. I enjoyed doing it, enjoyed learning about the people that lived before me. During that time I met other people that were doing the same kinds of research on their families. Many of them wanted names, dates, and places. I wanted those things too but that wasn’t all I wanted. I wanted to know the people.

Who were they?

What were their lives like?

How did they live?

What did they believe?

Those were the thoughts that went through my mind as I gathered the names, dates, and places. Piecing together the where and when was challenging but not all that hard once I knew where to look. Finding out who they were was much more difficult. I’ve read about people that have journals, diary’s, and old letters from their ancestors. I had none of that. What I had was access to my grandmother and her sister. Through them I learned stories of some of those ancestors. My great aunt could remember her great grandmother, my great great grandmother. That same aunt knew stories about her grandpa that no one else knew. My grandmother told of what it was like for her family during the depression, how her dad made bricks by hand and helped lay them in the roads in the town where I lived.

And so, little by little, I managed to piece together some of the details that told me who my ancestors were. It was a puzzled that when I managed to put it together was fascinating and yet left me wanting so much more.

There are times when I read Scripture that I wonder some of the same kind of things I wondered about my ancestors. Who was this person? What was it like for them on a day to day basis? How did they live? What did their home look like?

Recently I’ve been thinking those kind of things about Adam and Eve. I hope to write a post about each one. For today I’m going to focus on Adam. I doubt that I will be able to do justice to the questions running through my head but I’m going to try.

Can you imagine for just a moment what life for Adam must have been like?

I can’t. Not really. My mind kind of staggers when I try to. Here was a man that was unlike any other. He had no parents, no siblings.  He had no memories of childhood. There was no gradual growing and learning process for him. He was just there.

One minute he didn’t exist and the next he did.

What would he have thought when he first opened his eyes? Took his first breath? Moved his arms or legs for the first time?

There are times when I’m in a place that the air is so clean I just breathe it in. I do that in a greenhouse, in the woods, at the ocean. It’s so different from what the normal air is that you can tell a change is there with each breath. And so I breathe deeply, enjoy the clean air. Did Adam do that when he took his first breath? Or was it a shock to his system? Did he try to hold his breath so as not to have to breathe in what was foreign to him?

I have multiple children, have taken care of and raised even more. I remember well the times that those babies first discovered that they had hands or feet. They were captivated by them. Much time was spent moving tiny hands, wiggling little fingers. They could entertain themselves for hours just looking at their hands or feet. Did Adam do that?

I don’t remember discovering that I had hands and feet but I’m sure I had that same fascination with them. My memory, like everyone else’s, just knows that hands and feet have always been there. There is no conscious memory of the time I discovered they were there. To me they just always have been. But it wasn’t that way for Adam. He started life as a man. Would he have gone through the same discovery process that a baby does when it first starts realizing they have body parts, when they discover an animal for the first time?

Would he have been fascinated by each living creature as it was brought to him? Did he marvel at it the way a small child discovering a caterpillar for the first time does?

Adam was given knowledge that didn’t come from a gradual learning process as he grew and matured.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2:15

Did he have the knowledge already to work and keep the land? Or did God tell him what was expected of him, how to do it? For sure he had no human teacher, no book to turn to, no website to pull up.

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. Genesis 2:19-20

God brought the animals to Adam to be named. The knowledge to choose so many different names must have already been in Adam. He gave names to them and whatever he called them that was the name they had. Where did Adam come up with the names?

Here was a man that had never seen animals before. He hadn’t grown up gradually learning about different kinds of animals, discovering their physical characteristics, their sounds and traits. He opened his eyes one day and there they were.

In order to pick all those names out he had to have some kind of knowledge from day one. Can you imagine getting up one morning and discovering a world full of creatures that you’ve never seen anything like them before? How would you name them? How would you have any idea what they were if they were unlike anything you’d ever seen before?

Through that time of discovering and naming the animals God saw that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone. Why? How? What did Adam do that made God decide he needed a helper?

And here comes another area where I wonder what it was like for Adam. God put him into a deep sleep and made Eve from Adams body. I heard a preacher once that spoke of the sleep Adam was in during that time as being a kind of resting sleep that we should all pray for. I wondered then if that preacher didn’t realize that while Adam was in that deep sleep he essentially went through surgery. It probably wasn’t the restive sleep that preacher said it was. It was a sleep so deep that one of his bones could be removed. Did Adam feel pain in that sleep? Did he wake up from the pain of having a bone removed? If he was simply in a restive sleep wouldn’t he have awakened? Wasn’t that more of a sedated kind of sleep?

Either way…when Adam awoke God presented him with a woman. Here again was something Adam had never seen before. She was the first woman ever made. He had no knowledge of what a woman was, had never seen girls at any age. He woke from a deep sleep and there was a woman. What was his reaction?

Scripture tells us…

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Genesis 2:23

How did Adam know that she was taken out of him? Did God tell him? Did he look down and see the place where his bone had been removed? Did he have a scar? Here was a man, that without knowledge given by God, shouldn’t have known he was a man and he gave a name to Eve based on the fact that she was taken out of man.

While Adam was naming animals and woman…he was also adjusting to the very fact that he was a man. How did he feel? What did he think? Did he realize he was the only man on earth? Was he excited to see Eve? To realize he wasn’t alone in the world anymore?

What did it feel like to be the only man in the world?

I well remember how I felt when I knew no one that shared the deep faith that I do. I was alone in a world of people that professed to know God, to know Jesus, but who did not see or understand what I was seeing. There was a profound sense of isolation even though I was surrounded by friends and family. I was never alone, yet I was alone with my beliefs. How much more isolated may Adam have felt being alone in the world?

Was he satisfied with his times with God or did he long for someone else to be there? Did he long for someone to talk to?

God must have seen something in Adam for Him to decide to create Eve…because it wasn’t good that man should be alone.

What was Adam’s reaction to being presented with a wife? He didn’t choose her, didn’t get to know her, he fell asleep and woke up to a woman being presented to him. Basically a ‘here, this is yours’ kind of situation. Adam must have been happy because he said… This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

At last. That was Adams reaction. Not why, not how, not did I want this, but at last. Finally. It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for this. I wanted it. At last.

Now, in addition to adjusting to life, to adjusting to being a man, to discovering all there was to discover in his new world…now Adam had to figure out how to be a husband. Today we have examples of what marriage is, good and bad, we have books, movies, songs, counselors, preachers and teachers. And we have the Bible. We have examples of what marriage should be and what it shouldn’t be. We don’t have to guess at what we’re to do with a husband. We’ve grown up seeing married people. We already have a knowledge of what marriage is.

But can you imagine never having heard of marriage before, never having seen a married couple, then being presented with a spouse?

Not only did Adam have to take care of himself but he had to take care of Eve.

How did that make him feel? Was he happy and proud to do it? Scared? Excited? Nervous? Unsure?

Can you imagine what their time together consisted of? What it was like to go through the discovery process together? They would have made many discovery’s about their home and world together, would have made discoveries about each other, about their love and need for each other, about married life. All together.

There were no outside ideas filling their heads of what life should be like. No preformed opinions. They had each other, God, and nothing else.

What was it like for Adam?

Garden of Eden

I live in the woods. If I walk into my yard, no matter which way I turn I’m surrounded by towering trees, shrubs and so many other types of plant life that I can’t identify or describe them all. I find a deep and great peace from living in this environment. It’s the same kind of peace I find when I simply am. There’s something so right about just being. Something calm, something soothing, something that feels as if this is the way life is supposed to be.

I find that peace in many places because it is something that lives deep inside me. It’s a contentment that’s just there no matter where I am. But the peace I find in the woods, or the mountains or the ocean, takes that peace deeper, makes it richer, fuller.

I wonder if that peace was experienced by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? What would it have been like to live there?

An internet image search on the Garden of Eden turns up a wide variety of pictures, some painted, some actual pictures of places. Somehow I doubt that any picture does justice to what the Garden of Eden really was.

It was there that God placed the first people, there that he made the first family, provided the first home. It was there that God made and placed the family in exactly the environment He wanted them.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden…and there he put the man whom he had formed. Genesis 2:8

When I was a kid I used to wonder if I lived in the place I was supposed to live. Sometimes I wondered if I had the family I was supposed to have. As I got older, even as an adult, I used to think I was born into the wrong time, that I should have lived in the 1800’s. There was just something about that time period that made me feel as if I would have fit in better then than I did in the time I was born into. Eventually I realized that I was born exactly when and where the Lord wanted me to be born. He placed me in the family He wanted me to have, put me in the area He wanted me to live in, planted me in the time period He wanted me to be in. But for a long time I had those kinds of thoughts.

I don’t imagine Adam or Eve would ever have had need to think those things. Not only were they placed where they were but they had God to talk to, to tell them that they were in the home He created just for them.

But…what was it like in the Garden of Eden? Scripture tells us….

9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. Genesis 2:9-14

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:8

I grew up hearing Bible stories. I heard about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, heard how perfect the garden was. From the stories I was told, Eden was nothing short of heaven on earth. Was it? Scripture doesn’t seem to say. It would seem that the temperature was either very mild or warm because Adam and Eve wore no clothes until after they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil but there’s no reference to that except in Genesis 3:8 where it said …in the garden in the cool of the day… But how cool was cool? There’s a cool part of the day when the temperature reaches over 100 degrees and a cool part of the day when they stay below freezing.

To this day…in my mind…when I think of the Garden of Eden, I think of perfection. Of temperature that stays constantly comfortable, of animals that don’t bite, of insects that don’t sting. Of days where there was nothing to do but walk through the garden and pluck the food you wanted to eat off vines and trees that grew abundantly. But that image is the result of having been taught time and again the story of Eden being heaven on earth.

I know now that it wasn’t. Temptation was there. Sin was there. Evil was there.

But as I look over my woods, see the trees, the bushes and vines, the lake, the creeks, the animals…I can’t help but wonder, while I hear nothing but the sound of nature, was that what Eden was like?

And if it was…

It comes very close to being heaven on earth, simply because there is nothing but the peace of creation surrounding you. When I stand in the woods, I have around me everything I need to survive. My modern mind may not know how to do it…which foods are edible, which ones are poisonous, which ones make medicine…but they are there if I just knew how to use them.

We have berries growing in our woods right now. They’re there for the picking. But we had to find them before we could pick them, we had to know that they were edible to be able to enjoy them. I remember well the joy I felt at first discovering a patch of wild blackberries. They weren’t in our woods but in town. I stumbled on them by accident. That discovery made me happy. I don’t happen to like blackberries but finding them was pure joy. I knew my children loved them and that I was going to be able to give them a treat when they discovered what I’d found. We’ve since found many more blackberry vines, have found other berries too. It doesn’t seem to matter how many berries we pick, or what kind they are, it is a joy to pick them. To enjoy the taste of them fresh off the vine. To know that they were provided by the Lord for our enjoyment. There’s a pleasure in that that doesn’t come from anything bought at the grocery store. I never felt that kind of pleasure when growing something in a garden either.

It’s the joy of knowing the Lord provided that food and its simply there for the finding.

I find that same joy in just walking through our woods, in sitting and looking at them. They’re there, provided by the Lord, for our enjoyment, for our pleasure, for our survival, for our peace of mind and Spirit.

Was that what if felt like in the Garden of Eden?

Encounter with a dragonfly

Today I set on the swing in our yard and had the privilege of an up close encounter with a dragonfly. It joined me not just for a fleeting second but for many long minutes. Not only did it sit beside me, resting on the chain of the swing, but it sat very close to eye level for me, then it was nice enough to fly around in circles for me and land again in pretty much the same spot but in a slightly different position so that I could view it from all angles.

And I took full advantage of the opportunity to do so. Until recently I saw dragonflies much the way I did butterflies…beautiful and friendly bugs. But then one day my daughter picked one up and got bit and we learned that they’re not only pretty but can cause an uncomfortable encounter if you try to hold them. Today I saw them in yet a different way. Up close. I examined…without touching…its very large eyes, what I assumed to be its nose. I watched it open and close its mouth. Looked at all four of its legs and discovered it had what looked like miniature legs beside its mouth…feelers?...what amounts to hands?...I assume they’re there to help it eat but I really don’t know. I saw the many different colors that make up its body, the joints in its tail, its see through wings.

And as I observed this little critter that shared a part of its day with me…I saw the wonder of my Lord’s creation.

There before me, not just in existence, but in the fact that it was sitting so close at the right height for me to observe and then it flew around and repositioned itself enough times for me to see it from all angles. It was only a few moments in what was a rather busy day but it was time spent in wonder and amazement for me.

If someone had observed me I probably looked much like a toddler discovering something that fascinates them. I was basically lost in my own world…and the world of a dragonfly. For that brief amount of time it was me and it.

I did try and share the experience with my daughters but they reminded me that dragonflies aren’t good bugs. One went so far as to tell me it was an evil bug. So back to my own world I went.

Happily I observed the little bug that was sharing itself with me. It seemed to be unafraid even when I all but touched it. It was almost like it was studying me as I studied it. Maybe it was.

I can’t help but think…as I often do…how much went into creating just one creature on this earth. That dragonfly had beautiful colors, wings that looked like they shouldn’t hold it up but did, eyes that took up most of its head… I could go on and one. In one creature, one bug, so much went into making it. So many details.

And for what?

What purpose does any one creature on earth serve? Why did the Lord put them here? All of creation was made for us. For our use and enjoyment.

I don’t know what purpose a dragonfly has. I don’t know if it has a certain job the way a honey bee does. But I know they bring enjoyment to my life. I like to look at their colors, to see them flit around the yard.

It may be that our pleasure is the only job these little, and not so little, bugs have or they may have a job I don’t know about. So often I encounter bugs I wish weren’t here…spiders, ticks, flys, gnats…but today I was given an up close encounter with one that I very much enjoyed…even if it does bite and even if my daughter does think it’s an evil bug.

It was a blessing to me to share that space of time with one of the Lord’s creatures.