Genesis- How not How long

Friday, September 18th

In the original passage of Genesis 5, what two names and descriptions stood out?
Let’s take a look again at Genesis 5:24, 29- 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away… 29 He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” Enoch and Noah, their descriptors are different.

Enoch even has mystery, he walked with God and then was no more, God took him. Took him where? Your guess is as good as mine. But again, what should get our attention? Not if
he went to heaven or paradise or some in between. Our focus should be on the fact that he walked in such a way that God desired to be with him.

Also, Enoch wasn’t a king who gets God’s attention, like the Sumerian Kings, what got God’s attention was one who walks faithfully with him.

Then we see Noah, his namesake means rest. The biblical authors define him one who will comfort us in the midst of hardship. Genesis 6:8-9 also says that Noah walked faithfully with God.

Earlier we read how the people began to call on the name of the Lord, which means there was trusting faithfulness in pursuing God and walking with God. Which is illustrated here by two people, Enoch and Noah.

Which means, it’s not about how long they lived or how long you live, the focus of the list of names and dates is about HOW you LIVE.

C.S. Lewis says in his book, God in the Dock, “I care far more how humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing goodness and happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.”

How you live is more important than how long you live? How do you live?

Again, a choice… back to the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve had a choice; trust in God’s provision or take for themselves. Lamech in Cain’s line took, took two wives, took a life, multiplied evil.

Then we see Enoch and Noah, they were noted for walking faithfully with God to the point, Enoch was brought to a destiny unknown and Noah’s purpose was renowned. A man who brought comfort and rest, a new covenant with God, the new Adam, eventually pointing to the last Adam, in Jesus.

Make it personal- are you more focused or energized on how long you live or how you live? What gets your time, energy, resources, and attention?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be healthy or take care of ourselves or even spend resources in such a way that we enjoy life. I’m not saying that at all.

I’m saying, can you wrestle with what it means to faithfully walk with God? Because that has greater value than the dates on your headstone. The dash means more than your birth date or death date.

What does it mean for your faith walk to be consistent not erratic? Persistent not perfection? Side by side with God, not from a distance? Not religion but relationship. And that relationship, walking faithfully with God should influence every other area of your life; the way you love, the way you work, the way you interact with others, what you put your time, energy, and resources towards.

A life well lived tells a story, something of value tells a story of impact.

Which means I want to leave you with this reflection from a man who championed a life well lived, but faced the curse in so many ways, Martin Luther King Jr. I want to share a portion of his speech on April 10, 1960, called Keep Moving from This Mountain.

“I do not give you this element of faith and superficial optimism. I do not stand here as a detached spectator. As I say to you this afternoon, have faith in the future, I speak as one who lives every day amidst the threat of death. I speak as one who has had to stand often amidst the surging murmur of life’s restless sea, I speak as one who has been battered often by the jostling winds of adversity, but I have faith in the future. I have faith in the future because I have faith in God and I believe that there is a power, a creative force in this universe seeking at all times to bring down prodigious hilltops of evil and pull low gigantic mountains of injustice. If we will believe this and struggle along, we will be able to achieve it.

Keep moving, for it may well be that the greatest song has not yet been sung, the greatest book has not been written, the highest mountain has not been climbed. This is your challenge! Reach out and grab it and make it a part of your life. Reach up beyond cloud-filled skies of oppression and bring out blazing stars of inspiration. The basic thing is to keep moving. Move out of these mountains that impede our progress to this new and noble and marvelous land. Langston Hughes said something very beautiful in his poem, “Mother to Son.”

‘Well son, I’ll tell you Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, splinters, Boards torn up, places with no carpets on the floors, bare! But all the time, I’se been a-climbing on and reaching landings And turning corners and sometimes going in the dark where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you stop now. Don’t you sit down on the steps cause you find it’s kinda hard. For I’se still goin boy, I’se still climbing, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.’

Life for none of us has been a crystal stair, but there is something we can learn from the broken grammar of that mother, that we must keep moving. If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.”