Genesis Day 5: If you don’t like “the God of the Old Testament,” check out Genesis 2!
There is a phrase some use. “That’s my baby!” We apply it to our boats, our cars, the latest creation we’ve made…even our…babies.
It communicates our deep connection, our deep investment, our deep love—for whatever is crowned with that phrase.
When you pour yourself into something—your sweat, your energy, yourself—it is natural to become deeply committed.
…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…
Okay, so how many of us, when we learned CPR, got squeamish at the bit where you had to put your lips on the Annie, the mannequin (that was her name when we did it).
The text says that there was a mist over the earth, over the dirt…I envision it was muddy…and the Lord God got down on his hands and knees and made the first human out of a mud-pie…and then He bent over, put his lips on the mud, and breathed life into Adam.
Now before you accuse me of being a crazy literalist, let me just ask you to pause and imagine the scene.
Writers use this kind of pictorial, visual language to evoke in us an emotion. What emotion do you get with this sort of picture?
I get deep personal investment.
God was not grossed-out, or repelled, by breathing His breath into his beloved creation. God was creating Adam in a unique relationship. I believe the point of this text isn’t that God did this once, and then Adam and Eve “took it from there, and got the rest of the Human Race going”. No, I believe, God is the creator of all.
God creates US in a unique relationship. We have the breath of God in us!
Those of you who have studied this text will know that the original language is Hebrew, and the Hebrew word for “breath” and “wind” and “spirit” is the same word.
The same “spirit” that hovered over creation in chapter 1, verse 2, that spirit, was breathed into you.
With the Spirit of God breathed into you, is it any wonder that we are Family?
You might be thinking, “I already know the Bible says God make me. I read it in chapter one.” Okay, sure, you and I read it. Why does it appear in a slightly different way here in chapter two?
I suggest that viewing it from “this angle” shows a deeper connection of God to humankind. He made us. He breathed life into us. We are meant for, we were created to be in, relationship with Him—He wants us to be in a relationship with Him.
This truth is so important, that we are offered it twice in the first two chapters of the Bible.
Hang onto this thought: the thought that God desires to be in a relationship with us. If you can, then when we read Genesis, in fact all of the Bible, you will literally see God seeking us!
Back to today’s thought.