I've learned a few ultimate truths about what is necessary to consider before pursuing a relationship, and really that is the biggest thing going on right now in my thought. So due to many biological realities (Reticular Activating System, impact bios... to name a few) the reality of a relationship has crossed paths with me and I have naught to do but settle the tension (or more accurately, manage the tension). In Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What, there was a chapter that really ministered to me, speaking just what I needed to hear:
"Moses said God knew Adam was lonely or incomplete or however you want to say it, but God did not create Eve directly after He stated Adam was lonely.... a lot of times before the fall, I don't think of people going around lonely. But the thought also comforted me because I realized that loneliness in my own life doesn't mean I am a complete screw up, rather that God made me this way. You always picture the perfect human being as somebody who doesn't need anybody, like a guy on a horse out in Colorado or whatever. But here is Adam, the only perfect guy in the world, and he is going around wanting to be with somebody else, needing another person to fulfill a certain emptiness in his life. And as I said, when God saw this, He did not create Eve right away. He did not give Adam what he needed immediately. He waited. He told Adam to name the animals.
Now I had read this a thousand times, just glancing over it you know, but this time, reading it without looking for a magical formula , I actually thought about what would be involved in a job as big as naming the animals. In my mind this had been such an effortless action; Adam sits on a log with his land on his chin, God parades the animals by rather quickly, Adam calls out names under his breath: Buffalo, chimp, horse, mouse, lizard, buffalo... Uh, wait--did I already say buffalo? Um, well--how about cow; did I already say cow.
But could it really have been that effortless? .....I wondered how long it must have taken him to journey to the ocean to name the sea life, and whether God had them swim up close to the shore, so Adam only had to go in about waist-deep.
I looked up how many animals there are in the world, and it turns out there are between ten million and one hundred million different species around in the time of the Garden, and Adam, apparently, had to name all of them. And the entire time he was lonely.
I never thought of Adam the same again. The image of the man holding a fig leaf over his privates seemed nearly crude. Rather this was a man who, despite feeling a certain need for a companion, performed what must have been nearly one hundred years of work, naming and perhaps even categorizing the animals... The thing is when Adam had finished naming the animals, after all his work and effort, God put him to sleep, took a rib out of his side, and fashioned a woman. I had read that part a thousand times, too, but I don;t think I quite realized how beautiful this moment was....."
It continues on to talk about how in that hundred years (yes..... HUNDRED YEARS!) Adam could not communicate and exist like a companion with any of the animals he came into contact with. In these hundred years, families formed with the animals. The idea of another person never entered Adam's mind, but God surprised him with companion. They probably didn't fall in love right away, but in that moment, God had blessed his waiting and his faith. How often do we think of Adam as a man of faith? Never! I can't put words into that picture; it really speaks for itself. God is a good God and He blesses purity and entrusts his gifts to those who have remained pure. It's exciting!
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