Where Are They Now?
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
the heart of Biblical Greats
October 3rd, 2021
Romans 8:3-4, ‘God went for the jugular when He sent His own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In His Son, Jesus, He personally took on the human condition, entered into the disorderly mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for, but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.’ (the MESSAGE)
ADAM
Genesis 3:7-12, ‘Then the eyes of the two of them were opened [that is, their awareness increased], and they knew that they were naked; and they fastened fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, so the man and his wife hid and kept themselves hidden from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to Adam, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you [walking] in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten [fruit] from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?” And the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me—she gave me [fruit] from the tree, and I ate it.”’ (AMP)
He could hardly recall what ‘life’ once felt like. Suddenly one day, there he was. He wasn’t. Then, there he was. He tried to remember the chill that ran through his body as he morphed from a vapor and some dust, and at once felt fingers and curled toes and reached up to feel the fur on his head. The eyes of Who shone down upon him with such kindness it had nearly hurt to peer back. Then an extraordinary thing happened, as the gentle One breathed slowly and surely, he felt something inside him begin to expand. Then, pa-rum, pa-rum, pa-rum, the pulse beat in his chest like a drumbeat, quickening as he stared steadily back at the One who gazed upon him. A memory of that now slid down his cheek and he reached up to wipe the wetness of the recollection away.
‘What’s wrong,’ she asked, her voice soft and kind. He knew she knew what was up, but it felt nice for her to ask anyway. Suddenly, she had appeared too, and he thought back on that memory also. It had hurt when she came to be, as the One Who had breathed into him had taken a piece of him with which to create her. At once, she became, and he could not believe his holy eyes. Where he was solid, she was soft; where he was direct, she was sweet; where he was focused, she enjoyed; where he was rugged, she was beautiful. ‘Eve,’ a gush fell out of his mouth, nearly taking his heart with it. They became inseparable.
Now they had little to say to one another and she no longer looked at him in the same vein as she once did. He couldn’t see the beauty of her skin nor touch its velvety silkiness. He was horrified when suddenly he realized they were bare, and the One Who called Himself God, Who had formed them, could see every single inch of them; that didn’t seem right. He had grabbed her hand on the day that everything changed, and they’d run and hidden in the undergrowth. But it hadn’t mattered; it was as if He could see them anyway, without even looking. Like with His heart, not with His eyes.
Oh well, he murmured, as he thought back on it. Seems so long ago now when they were sent away. His hands bled as he worked the ground and there were tasks always before him; there was no shut off valve ever anymore. He toiled in the same dirt from which he thought he had been made, in the heat of the sun, and he wondered what for. Adam thought back and realized that surely there was nothing left but requirements, and the woman God gave him no longer smiled and certainly never laughed at all. In fact, she cried constantly, and he thought he had killed her when their offspring arrived, her desperation and screams pierced the night. Gone were the days in the gentle breeze and the freshness of the Garden, and the road ahead stretched long and dusty and forlorn. He wondered where they were going, and would they look back on this too someday and wonder why, and remark how they wished they could just turn back time and have a do-over. What lie up ahead, he invariably speculated; was it better than what lay behind?
John 3:16-17, ‘”For here is the way God loved the world—He gave His only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in Him will never perish but experience everlasting life. God did not send His Son into the world to judge and condemn the world, but to be its Savior and rescue it!”’ (TPT)
