Genesis- Oh Brother Pt.2

Wednesday, September 9th

Read Genesis 4:6-9- 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” 8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

God is saying, if you don’t tend to what is going on it will cost you. He uses the language of doing what is right versus not doing what is right. Again, this is not “right and wrong” as we know it. Because what you think is right and what I think is right in any given situation can be different.

This is a callback to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, tov and ra, right and wrong, the battle of choice between the way of God or the way of “other”. When we don’t choose the way of God, way of tov, good, right, sin is crouching at our door ready to pounce.

This is such a powerful image. The author of Genesis is giving us a picture of how sin, moral failure works, they are saying sin is like an animal, sin is a croucher within waiting to pounce. Sin is a croucher.

I really wanted to put a compilation of giant cats, lions, jaguars, leopards, and tigers pouncing and devouring their prey, something from National Geographic, but then I thought that might be too graphic.

But that’s the picture of sin that God is trying to communicate to Cain. If you don’t tend to what is lurking within you, if you don’t investigate why you feel, respond, choose what you are feeling, responding and choosing, sin will attack you and take you down. Sin is a croucher and it will attack.

Pastor Lee Eclov shares it this way in an article he wrote. “But in these days’ temptations find new toeholds because of our new fears, our isolation from most people, and from the inescapable company of a few. Temptations lurk in our boredom, frustrations, and the disruption of healthy routines…. Sin knows where our doors are, too.”

Friends, this is another message for another time. But this isn’t about sin management, this is about taking the time to wrestle with the two roads. Do I live ruled by sin, not paying attention to what I am doing, feeling, responding, which means I live defeated?

Because Cain didn’t heed God’s divine warning, he lived defeated, marked by his actions.
But if we choose the road of tov, good, God’s road and allow God to rule our life, with God’s power we can have victory or rule over what is crouching within and in order to do that, the other path is tending to what is crouching within.

Allowing God, through quiet time, journaling, prayer, pause, trusted others to ask questions, investigate, reveal, and release what could be a potential warning sign. Learn when you could be at greater risk of sin crouching, looking to pounce. I know for me, when I get really tired and I don’t tend to my heart, I am more susceptible to not being vigilant and sin is ready to pounce. Maybe it is your schedule or isolation or failure or maybe even success. But all of that are opportunities for a divine warning from God and to tend to what is crouching within.

By the way, Jesus references that in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5:27, that untended anger can brew into murder. Paul gives us this guide in Ephesians 4:26-27- “don’t let the sun go down when you are angry.” It’s not just, don’t go to bed mad, it’s if you don’t tend to what is making you angry, it may pounce on you later.

Today, how can you decipher these two roads- Ruled over or ruled by, live defeated or tend to what is crouching?