A Bigger Picture

Genesis 2:6-7
“… but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

I missed the sequence until now, the fine-tuning from the bigger picture to the more and more specific picture, from the intent of blessing to the twisting of the same until blessing was diminished.

God, in His first creative act outside the heavenly sphere that was His home, created earth … that realm which would be the abode of our temporal being. His first separation was to set aside the waters from the ground. Spilling upward out of that ground a life-giving mist blessing the face of the ground. When next God looked to the ground it would be to gather its parts, the dust of the ground, and from it lovingly fashion man … that being that was to be a reflection of His own image. But God would ‘zoom in’ closer still, gathering from the rib of that dust-based man, and build (re-form) a woman perfectly designed for him, to pour blessing of heart and soul and flesh upon man. Their union producing the blessing of life.

I guess what really captured my attention came when I began looking closer still at ‘ground,’ quickly discovering the slide back into dust, away from blessing. The ground was the substance (for want of a better term) from which God chose to create life: every tree, every beast of the field, every bird of the air, man himself.

When God confronts Adam for eating the fruit Eve gave him, God pronounced a curse upon the ground. Interestingly, not because Eve ate, but because Adam, apparently with awareness of his actions, followed after ‘another god’ in his heart.

Not only would the ground experience the curse, mankind would continue to eat of that curse, becoming a slave to the very things from which God had intended the outpouring of blessing, the very substance from which man himself was created. In essence, becoming a slave to self.

Maybe I’m off base, but the delineation seems so clear. And, therefore, it makes all the more sense that when Cain later offered the fruits of the ground, they could be only one thing … unacceptable to God. It may seem harsh, but I think there is much hidden here. They were the direct fruits of that which was cursed because of Adam choosing ‘another god’.

I still hear the apostle John: God is light; in Him is no darkness at all.

Where is Eve in all this, you ask? It is after she ate of that which was forbidden that Adam named her “Life-Giver.” God had left them hope. Eve, she who was re-built (built anew) would house the seed of life … the seed of Promise … the seed of hope … the very seed of Heaven. He Who would know no earthly father … He whose only Father was Light, and Truth, and Life Himself.

Yes, Eve took the serpent’s bait. But she still rested under the ‘covering’ of her husband. Eve would suffer her own consequences, without doubt; yet her consequences appear to fall on none other than herself. Adam’s consequences, however, would ripple into every aspect of every living thing yet to come.

In the midst of all playing out here in Eden lies a deceiver … a deceiver whose own heart possibly seeded the very ground from which God created man. It had been Satan’s domain; and he had left his mark. Thankfully, life did not come from the ground. The ground was simply the temporal tent that housed God’s breath … the only life there ever really was or will be.

Food for thought!