Bible in 90, Day 01: The Pursuit Begins

Genesis 1-16

*image courtesy of Woopidoo2 at stock.xchng

I did not start out my New Year as I’d planned.  My wife and I were supposed to spend New Year’s Eve playing board games and waiting for  11:45 so we could go flip on the coverage of the Ball dropping, open our sparkling grape juice, toast, and kiss our way into the new year like we always do. (On a sappy note, I realized that Keelie and I have spent every New Year’s Eve together that we’ve known each other.  Even before we started dating, I was still at her house for a youth group party!) 

Where was I?

New Year’s! Right!  Instead, I received a distressing phone call at 4pm on New Year’s Eve that my father-in-law was spending his New Year’s in the hospital awaiting surgery.  Several minutes of frantic packing later, and my family was in the minivan, bound for North Carolina, 5 hours away.  Now it’s several days later, and we’re still here, doing our best to care for our family.  As I type, I’m battling a stomach bug that I’m sharing with two of my nieces, and hopefully no one else!  Now, I’m not griping, I have a point. 

I hate sin! 

We started off our reading for this 90 day challenge with 2 of only 4 chapters in the Bible that show a world without sin.  Genesis 1-2, and Revelation 21-22 are those chapters, and they offer precious glimpses into the world as God intended it. 

In those four chapters, there is no death, there is no separation, there is no sickness, there are no tears.  So often we talk about illness and death as just a natural part of life, but that’s only partly true.  Illness and death are normal parts of life, but not natural ones.  Everyone experiences illness and death, but that’s not the way we were made! 

Man was not built to die.

God told Adam that the consequence of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be death, and Genesis 5 illustrates that.  We see a whole chapter of people dying.  They lived incredibly long lives, but eventually they all died (except of course for Enoch). 

The reason I’m in North Carolina right now caring for my family is that sin is in the world.  Hear me clearly, I’m not saying my father-in-law is being punished for some specific sin, I’m saying that the presence of sin in the universe and the fallenness of the world is the cause of his illness.  Thankfully, he’s doing very well and is recovering wonderfully.  However, one day, he will die.  I will die.  You will die.  Some illness or injury will take everyone of us unless Jesus comes back in our lifetime.

The beautiful thing is that as soon as sin entered the world and death through sin (Romans 5:12) God was immediately on the scene promising a Savior (Genesis 3:15).  God refused and still refuses to call it quits on mankind, and instead pursues us through time and space to bring us back to Him. 

I’m glad you’re with me on this challenge as we read through in 90 days that great love story between God and man.  Let’s remember that illness and death may be normal, but they are not natural.  Let’s praise God for His plan to restore the world to its right order, so that Revelation 21-22 is the restoring of Genesis 1-2.  Let’s live lives that reflect that hope in God!

Originally at Words of Reason